Q^^^wyfi^iM:4j 









.fci^.v*i2tli^ 



't(Mh 



GREAT TEACHERS 



OF 



FOUR CENTURIES. 



AN OUTLINE HISTORY OF THE GREAT MOVEMENTS 

AND MASTERS OF THE PAST FOUR HUNDRED 

YEARS, THAT HAVE SHAPED THE THEORY 

AND PRACTICE OF THE EDUCATION 

OF THE PRESENT. 



^Illustrated with Portraits from Authentic Sources.) 



V 



By OSSIAN H. LANG, 

Author of "■ Comenius," " Basedow," *' Rousseau," 
" Horace Mann," Etc. 




NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO, 

1893. 






Copyright 1893. 
CELLOGG & 

NEW YORK AND CHICAGO. 



E. L. KELLOGG & CO, 



GREAT TEACHERS OF FOUR CENTURIES.' 



CONTENTS. 



^be Slsteentb Century* 

CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS AT THE CLOSE OF THE 

MEDIEVAL AGE, 7 

REVIVAL OF LEARNING g 

Luther, .,.„...,.. lo 

Melanchthon, ........ u 

Trotzendorf, ........ n 

Sturm, .......... 12 

Ascham, • , "».--... 13 

Mulcaster, >.■..... ^ 14 

A NEW MOVEMENT 16 

Rabela's, ••....... 16 

Schools of the Jesuits, ....... jg 

Bacon 20 



Zbc Seventecntb Century. 



BEGINNING OF REFORM IN PEDAGOGICS. 

Comenius, ......... 22 

Condition of the Elementary Schools, . . „ .25 

XLhc Blgbtecntb Centurij. 

EDUCATION BUILT ON A PSYCHOLOGIC BASIS. . . 28 

Locke, .......... 30 

Basedow, ......... 31 

Rousseau, •••...... 34 

Zbc Bineteentb Qentm^, 

Pestalozzi, ......... 36 

FrcEbel, ......... 39 

Herbart, ......... 41 



ii. CONTENTS. 

Bmcrfcan ;e&ucators. 

COLONIAL TIMES 45 

First American Book on Pedagogics, ..... 45 

A Teacher of the Last Century, ...... 46 

German Teachers, . . . . . , . , 47 

The Era of Revolution, ....... 47 

PESTALOZZIAN ERA. 

French Influence and Jefferson, ..... 47 

First News of Pestalozzi, ...... 48 

Maclure and Neef, ........ 48 

Cabell 49 

Educational Awakening, . . . . . . .50 

Origin of Institutes, ....... 51 

Prof. HalPs Lectures, . . . . . . .51 

Pedagogical Journals, ....... 52 

Wadsworth, ......... 52 

Lancaster, ......... 53 

Mann, .......... 54 

The Horace Mann Era, ....... 57 

Froebelian Workers in America, . . . . , .57 

Pedagogic Writings, .«.,»,. 58 



PREFACE, 



The object of this volume is to present as clear an 
account of the historical development of educational 
thought as is possible within the limits of fifty pages. 
The aim has been to adapt it to the needs of the great 
body of busy teachers who have neither the time nor 
the means to make a comprehensive study, but are earn- 
estly striving to be informed regarding the facts that 
are indispensable for an understanding of the theory 
and practice of modern education. 

The material here offered originally appeared in 
Educational Foundations, a monthly magazine 
planned to aid young teachers who want to advance 
in professional studies. The text has been carefully 
revised. Among the additions that have been deemed 
desirable are outlines of the lives and educational 
ideas of Ascham, Mulcaster, and Herbart, and a sketch 
of Froebel's kindergarten plan. The portraits that 
adorn the pages have been selected from authentic 
sources. The sketch of the development of American 
pedagogics thatjs added to this volume contains sev- 
eral interesting facts that are not to be found in any 
other work on the general history of education. 

O. H. L. 



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GREAT TEACHERS OF FOUR 
CENTURIES. 



Zbc Siyteentb Century* 



CONDITION OF THE SCHOOLS AT THE CLOSE 
OF THE MEDIEVAL AGE. 

Four hundred years ago there were no public schools 
in Europe. The schools that existed were ecclesiastical 
institutions whose sole object was to make the pupils 
obedient servants of the church. Education was re- 
garded as a mere preparation for trades, professions, 
and clerical duties. There were no schools for girls 
anywhere ; if parents desired to have their daughters 
instructed, they let them learn Latin. The great mass 
of the people was kept in a state of ignorance and bar- 
barism. 

The school teachers of that time were a decidedly dis- 
reputable lot of men. Employees of the church who were 
not fit to perform any higher (?) duties were put into the 
school-room. These were the aristocrats, as it were, of the 
trade. The majority of the schoolkeepers were disabled 
soldiers, tradesmen who could not earn enough money 
at their work to provide for their families, vagabonds 
looking for shelter during the inclement winter months, 



8 GREAT TEACHERS 

etc. All were more or less addicted to brandy (gener- 
ally more). As a rule they were not required to know 
more than the names of the Saints, the '* Salve reginam " 
and other hymns, the responsoria, order of ceremonies, 
etc.; for instruction was mainly for the purpose of pre- 
paring the boys for the church choir. 

The school buildings harmonized well with the ap- 
pearance and character of the keepers that infested 
them. A writer of that timef says that the " future 
teachers and rulers" were instructed '*in nasty, filthy 
houses among cats and mice, flees, house-bugs, and lice, 
and whatever else there was of bursalia." "The jails, 
slaughter houses, and hangman houses," he writes, were 
"castles and palaces " in comparison with the schools. 

The course of instruction was the same as that of the 
early part of the medieval age. The method of teach- 
ing was worse. Nicholas Hermann writes: "In the com- 
mon schools the barbarism and ignorance in instruction 
was such that many a one reached the age of twenty be- 
fore he learned his grammar and was able to understand 
and speak a little Latin. This Latin** sounded when 
compared with the Latin of to-day* like an old clatter- 
board or straw-fiddle compared with the best and clear- 
est organ." 

The discipline of the school was never more cruel. 
Erasmus Alberus (1500-1553) writes : " When I went to 
school I have often witnessed how horribly the poor 
children were treated : their heads were run against 
the walls and my own was also not spared. I was eight 
years old when I had a teacher who when he was full of 
wine, yea full of the devil, drew me sleeping from the 
straw on which I lay, took me by the feet and pulled me 
around, up and down, as though I were a plough, so 
that my head was dragged over the ground and was well 
bruised. . . . Then he began another game (!) : he took 
a pole and compelled me to climb up to the top and then 
let it fall so that I struck the ground ; that was to make 
good ingem'a, as he thought. Finally he took me and 
shoved me into a bag and hung me out of the window. 



+N. Hermann, died 1561, 

** Medieval (church) Latin. 

*As restored by the humanists : the classical (Ciceronian) Latin. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 9 

.... 1 was taught so well that I could not decline a 

noun when I was fourteen." 

During the whole of the medieval period instruction 
was wholly dependent upon rhe priesthood. The head 
of the church was the head of the school. Teaching 
was not regarded as a special study, but merely as a 
branch of theology, and the least important at that. 
Tradition was the only guide in educational affairs. 



%EyiVAL OF LEARNING. 

In the 14th century a movement had been set afoot 
that was destined to become a power and to scatter the 
darkness of medievalism. A small body of men began 
to emancipate themselves from the despotism of tradi- 
tion and to reflect upon the destiny of man and the 
purpose and means of education. They compared the 
degenerated human race with the ideals of true man- 
hood as described by the classics of Rome and Greece. 
Here man was degraded to a mere fraction in an un- 
yielding social organism — there the individual man 
counted for something; here intellectual pursuits were 
reserved for a few favored ones — there every man had 
access to the fountains of knowledge ; here cast-iron 
formalism and groping in the darkness of narrow, dreary, 
and monotonous scholasticism — there art, science, 
and literature flourished. To rejuvenate mankind after 
the model of classic antiquity became the end and aim 
of their work. By basing education on the study of the 
writers of old they hoped to stimulate the rising gener- 
ation to independent research and thereby to restore 
the sciences and to inculcate those ideas that to them 
meant human perfection. 

This movement, commonly called humanism^ began in 
Italy, and from there spread over the whole Europe. 
The poet Petrarca (1304-1374) and the two great 
Florentines, Dante Alighieri (1263-132 1) and Boccaccio 
(1313-1375), were^ among the first to make the masters 
of antiquity the guides of a new philosophy and 
a new education. This gave a fresh impulse to intel- 
lectual activity which had so long been dormant, wrapped 
up in preconceived notions and traditional abuses. 



10 GREAT TEACHERS 

In Germany the tide of humanism resulted in the 
Reformation, to us a most important event in the 
history of education, as it led to the birth of the primary 
school and the system of modern state instruction, and 
introduced a new, subjective instruction and principle 
of individuality and reason. The greatest among the 
German humanists were Luther, Melanchthon, Trotzen- 
dorf, Sturm, and Neander. 

The most distinguished of the English humanists was 
Roger Ascham, the author of '* The Scholemaster." 
Richard Mulcaster, the famous educationist of the 
Elizabethan age, can hardly be called a humanist. His 
pedagogic writings form the connecting link between 
the humanistic school, with its one-sided devotion to 
the study of classic authors, and the new era in peda- 
gogics that had already begun with Rabelais. 

Martin Luther. (1483- 1546.) 

Luther, the father of the German public school, was 
born at Eisleben, 1483, and died in 1546. His " Address 
to the Councillors of all German cities" (1524) is the 
first important work in the history of modern peda- 
gogic literature. In this tractate he declared it to be 
the bounden duty of the government to improve and ex- 
tend education by the establishment of new schools for 
the whole juvenile population, both boys and girls, and 
by enforcing attendance at these institutions. Instruc- 
tion should not be o. private matter and not left to indi- 
vidual judgment ; but it should be the concern of the 
people of the state. If the state, Luther argued, can 
force its able-bodied subjects to become soldiers, much 
more can and ought it to compel its subjects to keep 
their children at school. The immediate result of the 
forcible *' Address " was that Luther's plans for the or- 
ganization of public instruction and views concerning 
compulsory education were adopted throughout the 
whole of Protestant Germany. The governing bodies of 
states and cities began to establish new schools and to 
re-organize and improve the old ones. 

The education of girls, which before the Reformation 
had been entirely neglected, owes its origin in Germany 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. n 

to the effect of Luther's masterly tractate. The idea 
of a universal education was forever established, as was 
also the principle that the state is responsible for the 
instruction of its subjects. A number of great educa- 
tionists were greatly influenced by Luther, among them 
Melanchthon, Trotzendorf, Sturm, also Rabelais, Ratich, 
Comenius, and the majority of the later German school 
reformers. 

Philip Melanchthon. (1497- 1560.) 

Melanchthon, called by his contemporaries " Precep- 
tor of Germany," was born 1497, and died in 1560, He 
was Luther's faithful assistant in the reformation of the 
schools. His most important pedagogic master-work 
was the/' Book of Visitation," which contained also the 
celebrated ''Saxon School Plan," a full and complete 
scheme for the inner organization and supervision of the 
schools. Wherever in the Protestant countries schools 
were to be re-organized, Melanchthon was asked for 
advice. The schools were to him more than mere in- 
stitutions of learning. "The teachers," he said, "should 
never forget before what an assembly they are, not 
among Cyclopes and Centauri, not in Plato's academy, 
but in a temple of God. To desecrate and defile this 
sanctuary is a crime. School life has less splendor than 
the life at court, but it is more valuable for the human 
race ; for what could be nobler than to lead tender souls 
to a knowledge of God, nature, and good rfiorals.'' 

Melanchthon and Luther worked hand in hand. 
Among the multitude of pupils that flocked to Witten- 
berg to be taught by them, were the great school men, 
Camerarius (Leipzig), Micyllus (Frankfort and Heidel- 
burg), Sturm (Strasburg), Trotzendorf (Goldberg, in 
Silesia), and many others of equal renown in their age. 

Valentine Trotzendorf. (1490- 1556.) 

Trotzendorf was for 25 years head-master of a school 
at Goldberg, and with Sturm the most prominent 
teacher of his age. As disciplinarian he ranks high 
above the school men of his time. 

School Government. — His school was organized on 



12 GREAT TEACHERS 

a republican basis, the pupils participating in the gov- 
ernment. 

A ??iagistracy of pupils was instituted, composed 
of a consul, 12 senators, and 2 censors. Trotzendorf had 
the title dictator perpetuus. If a pupil was accused of 
any wrong act, he had to defend himself before the 
senate. He was allowed a week to prepare his defense. 
The decision of the senate was final. Trotzendorf 
insisted strictly upon the execution of the senate's 
judgment. 

His principle was : ** Those will best govern (as men) 
according to laws who as boys have learned obedience 
to laws." 

The principles underlying this system of school gov- 
ernment were adopted by the schools of the Jesuits. 
Modifications of the plan have been commended from 
time to time and probably also put in practice. The 
Bell-Lancaster system was a new form of the plan. 
At the Goldberg school some of the older pupils were 
appointed to assist in teaching the lower classes, 

John Sturm. (1507- 1590.) 

Sturm, the renowned rector of the academy at Stras- 
burg (1537-81), was one of the greatest masters of 
school of organization in his time. 

1. The aim of schooling was to him threefold: piety, 
knowledge, and eloquence. 

2. Confining himself wholly to the teaching of Latin 
and Greek, he sacrificed everything else ; even the 
mother tongue was entirely ignored and banished from 
the school ; neither did history, geography, and the 
natural sciences appear in his curriculum. Arithmetic 
was not taken up till after the classics had been mas- 
tered, and geometry and astronomy were taught only 
in the highest class of the academy. 

3. Methodical Principles. — '' Select always the ne- 
cessary and leave out the superficial ; strive everywhere 
for perspicuity, and aim at multum, non multa — (much, not 
many things) : proceed everywhere methodically in 
questions and answers ; make learning neither too 
difficult, nor too easy; in this allow yourself to be 
guided by the individuality of your pupils and their 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 13 

powers of apprehension." Proceed from perception to 
the notion ; from the thing (fact) to the word, aiming at 
gradual organic development. 

The teachers at Sturm's school (9 and 10 classes) were 
required to be thoroughly familiar with the scope and 
limits of the work prescribed for their particular class 
as well as with that of the class preceding and following 
theirs (continuity and inner connection). 

Sturm was celebrated in his time as the greatest 
school organizer and methodician. His counsel was 
often solicited abroad. The English schools at Eton, 
Winchester, and Westminster framed their courses of 
study after the Strasburg model. The secondary 
schools of Germany, England, and our own country 
continued Sturm's plan in a modifiea form till late in 
our century. 

Rabelais corresponded with Sturm and commended 
his efforts to restore the classic languages and to teach 
only the purest and most elegant (Ciceronian) Latin. 
(The Latin of the middle ages was a clumsy corruption 
that probably no Roman would have recognized as his 
language.) 

Roger Ascham. (1515-1568.) 

Ascham was for a time the Greek tutor of the prin- 
cess Elizabeth, afterwards queen, and subsequently be- 
came Latin secretary to Edward VI., continuing in this 
office under Mary and Elizabeth, until his death in 
1568. His celebrated pedagogic work, "The Schole- 
master, or a Plain and Perfite Way of teaching children 
to understand, read, and write the Latin Tonge," was 
published three years after his death. The first part of 
this book treats of education in general, the second of 
the method of teaching Latin. The methodical rules 
indicated in the latter part belong to the best that were 
ever given for the teaching of dead languages. 

Ascham adopted Sturm's maxim, '' Multum^ non 7niilta^'' 
which he expresses tersely in the words, " a small area 
well cultivated." He insisted that the child should be 
taught to understand, not merely to memorize, and to 
be filled with **a love of learning, a desire to labor, a 
will to take pains." 



14 . GREAT TEACHERS 

His masterly treatment of the method of teaching 
Latin is shown in the following: ^'Let the master 
read unto him the Epistles of Cicero. First let him 
teach the child cheerfully and plainly the cause and 
matter of the letter ; then let him construe it into Eng- 
lish so oft as the child may easily carry away the under- 
standing of it ; lastly, parse it oyer perfectly. This 
done thus, let the child by and by both construe and 
parse it over again, so that it may appear that the child 
doubteth in nothing that his master taught him before. 
After this the child must take a paper book, and sit- 
ting in some place where no man shall prompt him, by 
himself, let him translate into English his former lesson. 
Then, showing it to his master, let the master take from 
him his Latin book, and pausing an hour at least, then let 
the child translate his own English into Latin again in 
another paper book. The master must compare it with 
Tully's book, and lay them both together." ^ 

It is difficult to trace the effect of Ascham's work on 
later educationists, but doubtless Mulcaster was greatly 
influenced by it and the improvement of teaching in the 
English grammar schools in Shakespeare's time seems 
to indicate that *' The Scholemaster " had borne fruit. 

Richard Mulcaster. (1530- 1611.) 

Mulcaster, the celebrated English teacher, was for 
twenty-five years the headmaster of the Merchant Tay- 
lor's school at London. Many of his pupils became 
eminent scholars, among them the greatest of the Eliza- 
bethean poets, Edmund Spenser, also Sir James White- 
locke and the Bishop of Winchester, the renowned Dr. 
Lancelot Andrewes, on whom Milton wrote an elegy. 

Muleaster's most noted works are the Positions (1581) 
and the Elementarie. The former book has been made 
available to the teachers of to- day by R. H. Quick's re- 
print. The latter work will in all probability be repub- 
lished soon. An excellent paper on Mulcaster and His 
^^ EIementa?'ie,'' by Foster Watson, read before the Col- 
lege of Preceptors, was published in the London Edu- 
cational Times and appeared in a condensed form in 
Educational Foundations, 

Mulcaster was a fine classic scholar, but his peda- 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 15 

gogic treatises were written in English, a significant 
step forward in an age that thought only of Latin as a 
literary language. He was an enthusiastic advocate of 
the teaching of the mother tongue and for this reason 
alone is entitled to a prominent place among the great 
educationists of the sixteenth century. In the " Ele- 
mentarie " he wrote : 

" Our own language bears the joyful title of our 
liberty and freedom, the Latin remembers us of our 
thraldom and bondage ? I love Rome, but London 
better ; I favor Italy, but England more. I honor the 
Latin, but I worship the English. ... I honor 
foreign tongues, but wish my own to be partaker of 
their honor. Knowing them, I wish my own tongue to 
resemble their grace. I confess their furniture, and 
wish it were ours. Why should not all of us write in 
English? . . . I do not think that any language, be 
it whatsoever, is better able to utter all arguments either 
with more pith or greater plainness than our English 
tongue. . . . not any whit behind either the subtile 
Greek for crouching close or the stately Latin for 
spreading fair." 

His main educational contentions, according to Fos- 
ter Watson, were : 

" 1. Culture and learning for those who have the wit 
to profit by it, whether rich or poor. Adequate knowl- 
edge for those who go into trade. 

2. Education for girls and women, as well as boys and 
men. Higher education for girls who have good abili- 
ties. 

3. Training colleges for teachers. 

4. Physical training for all — boys and girls, teachers 
and pupils, and this to be continued in after-life. 

; 5. Liberal education, with disinterested aims for the 
elementary schools. 

6. The best masters to take the lowest classes. 

7. Drawing and music to be taught in every school, 
not as 'extras,' but as essentials." 

" May it not fall out that such a thing as this may be 
called for hereafter, though presently not cared for, 
through some other occasion which hath the rudder in 
hand?" 



i6 GREAT TEACHERS 

A NEM^ MO^EiMENT. 

The learning of dead languages and religious dogmas 
was given undue prominence in the schools of the human- 
ists. The practical side of life was ignored. The main 
interest of the age centered in the advancement of the 
higher institutions of learning ; the elementary school 
was neglected. 

The opposition that naturally arose against this one- 
sided turning away from the requirements of actual life, 
found its first forcible expression in the writings of 
Rabelais, He was followed by Montaigne and Bacon. 
The movement started by these men has been called 
realism because it aimed at practical life-efficiency above 
everything else, and was most closely connected with 
reality. In opposition to the verbalism of the humanists, 
the realists advocated the acquisition of practical 
knowledge that would meet the needs of actual life, and 
urged the teaching of things rather than words. Through 
realism the natural sciences and physical training were 
added to the school curriculum, and the method of 
teaching underwent a complete change. 

Four distinctive steps will be noticed in the growth 
of the movement : 

1. The necessity of instruction in sciences and arts 
was shown and the method outlined. — Rabelais. 

2. Introduced in school-room practice, the lack of a 
logical organization of the sciences became apparent. 
The method was incomplete, having no firm basis of 
principles. — Schools of the Jesuits. 

3. The sciences were reconstructed, a universal and 
concrete method worked out, and a systematic and 
complete application of the method to the facts of 
nature determined. — Bacon. 

4. The principles of Bacon were transplanted into the 
theory of teaching. — Ratich and Comenius. 

Francis Rabelais. (i4B3-i553«) 

Rabelais, the satirist of the Renaissance, was Dorn at 
Chinon, France, about 1483 (1490, according to others). 
He joined a religious order, and spent many years in a 
monastery. He was greatly interested in the efforts of 




OF FOUR CENTURIES. 17 

the humanists and the Reformation. He was well versed 
in literature, both ancient and modern, and the sciences. 
His love for the classics and connection with leading 
humanists subjected him to 
violent persecutions by monks 
and theologians. His books and 
writings were confiscated, and 
he was imprisoned for a time, 
but managed to escape. At 
Lyons, 1532-34, he practiced as 
physician at a hospital, and 
lectured on anatomy. Here he 
wrote a number of books that 
exposed him to new persecutions. 
Later he published his works in 
Greek, Latin, and Italian. He is 
said to have died at Meudon 

F. RABELAIS. i , r • i ^ 

1553, where he was for eight years 
the cure of a small parish. His pedagogic masterwork 
is a romance of three giant kings, which appeared under 
the title ^' The Inestimable Life of the Great Gargantua, 
the Father of Pantagruel* This contained his thoughts 
on education. 

OUTLINES OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS. 

1. The aim of education is a complete man, who 
fears, loves, and serves God and loves his neighbor as 
himself, who is strong and healthy of body and skilled 
in art and industry, who possesses the greatest possible 
amount of knowledge, and loves it and constantly 
strives for greater perfection in it. 

2. Corporal punishment and severe discipline is to be 
banished. Kindness and forbearance are to be the 
guides of government. Example and a well regulated 
course of procedure lead to the formation of good 
habits. 

3. Acquisition of Knowledge : Language. — The 
mother-tongue is to be taught ; also Greek, Latin, He- 
brew, Chaldean, and Arabic. 

*lt is said that more copies of " Gargantua " were sold in two months than 
of Bibles in nine years, most likely because it had been condemned by the 
clergy. 



i8 GREAT TEACHERS 

J\/'afure and Man.— Va.rticula.r attention is to be de- 
voted to the natural sciences. (The schools of R's 
time knew nothing of these studies.) The pupil is to be 
taught also the structure of the bodyf and the principal 
rules of hygiene. All this is to be studied not merely 
for the sake of gaining knowledge, but to fill the pupil 
with a love of nature and mankind, and to show him 
the greatness and wisdom of his Creator. 

Glimpses of Method: Gargantua and his teacher con- 
template the stars of the heavens. At table they con- 
verse about the food before them, about its nature, 
quality, and properties. On their walks across fields 
and meadows they study botany. Every object that 
presents itself to the senses is carefully observed. 
Workshops, spiceries, anti laboratories are visited. Once 
each month teacher and pupil go into the country and 
pass the whole day in playing, singing, dancing, frolick- 
ing in some fine meadow, hunting for sparrows, collect- 
ing pebbles, fishing for frogs and crabs." On rainy days 
the pupil employs his time in manual labor, " in splitting 
and sawing wood, in threshing grain in the barn," etc. 
He is also taught to draw and construct various objects 
and design. To keep alive the interest of his pupil the 
teacher constantly provides opportunties for practical 
application of the acquired knowledge. 

Physical Culture : Rabelais declares himself in 
favor of a regular course of gymnastics which tends to 
strengthen the body and to develop health, skill, and 
brisk movement. Gargantua is to play ball, to toss it 
with the feet and throw it with the hands ; he is exer- 
cised in marching and running, in jumpingover trenches 
and hedges, in swimming in all possible positions, in 
managing a boat under most difficult conditions, in 
climbing trees and ropes, etc. Play and manual train- 
ing are also comprised in this scheme. 

Result. — The ideas of Rabelais have exerted a power- 
ful influence in shaping the theory of modern education. 
Their effect was not immediate. The terrible religious 
wars of the age made all attempts at reform in educa- 
tional practice impossible. But, though suppressed for 

t" By frequent dissections acquire a knowledge of the other world — which 
is man." — Rabelais. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 19 

more than two centuries, the pedagogic discoveries of 
the Sage of Chinon lived on. Montaigne, the author 
of the famous Essays (1533-1592), handed them down 
to posterity. Through him Locke received them 
and made them the basis of his Thoughts concern- 
ing education. In the i8th century they broke forth 
with tremendous force. The Emile of Rousseau was the 
Gargantua of a new era. In it the pedagogy of Rabelais 
was further developed, adapted to the conditions of the 
age and founded on a new philosophic basis. Its in- 
fluence appears also in the v/orks of Ratich and Come- 
nius, strange as it may seem. In all probability Ratich 
became acquainted with the ideas of Rabelais through 
John Fischart (-1589) who introduced them in Germany 
through his elaboration of Gai-gantua and Pantagruel. 
Comenius received them from Ratich. Later we meet 
with them again in the writings of Basedow. Thus their 
effect has been an important factor in the building up 
of the modern science of education. 

Schools of the Jesuits. 

In order to stem the torrent of free thought that be- 
gan with the birth of Protestantism, Loyola (1491-1556) 
organized the order of Jesuits. This association was to 
assume control over church, state, and family, and to 
educate mankind in accordance with the doctrines of 
the Catholic church. The schools established by this 
order were for almost two centuries the foremost insti- 
tutions of learning. Francis Bacon pointed them out as 
models to his time. "As regards pedagogics," he wrote 
(DeAug. Sclent., vol. 6, ch. 4), "consult the schools of 
the Jesuits; they are the best that have ever existed in 
this direction." 

The Jesuits adopted a carefully planned educational 
theory ; in their school organization they followed 
Melanchthon ; in methods Sturm was their model ; in 
discipline the- principles and scheme of Trotzendorf 
were their guide ; the ideas of Rabelais respecting the 
teaching of arts and sciences, physical training, and play 
were put in practice. They were the first teachers who 
organized their educational system on a psychological 
basis. They studied the special gifts of their pupils and 



20 



GREAT TEACHERS 



afforded them full and free development. The founder 
of their plan of school organization and teaching was 
Claudius Aquaviva. 

While there exists wide divergence of opinion regard- 
ing the order itself, it is conceded that it made great con- 
tributions to the advancement of educational practice. 

Francis Bacon. (1561-1626.) 

Bacon (Lord Verulam), the founder of empirical phil- 
osophy, was born in London, 
1561, and died at Highgate, 
1626. His principal works 
are the well known ^'Essays," 
the "Advancement of Learn- 
ing," and the '' Novum Orga- 
num." He was the first to 
make the method of induc- 
tion the object of comprehen- 
sive reflection and investi- 
gation. He devoted his life to 
the inauguration of a reform 
of the existing sciences and 
the reconstruction of all 
knowledge. 

THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION.* 

1. The teacher must know clearly the individuality of 
his pupil and determine his future manner of living" 
(character). 

2. "In that to which the mind is most inclined by reas- 
on of special gifts, or native propensities, progress will 
be greatest ; though with art much may be mended and 
supplied that by nature is lacking, for instance, for the 
flighty (superficial and wandering) mind the study of 
mathematics is an excellent cure ; assuming that it be 
inattentive also in this instruction, mathematical dem- 
onstration must be begun anew." (Knowledge of 
mathematics is to be gained step by step through well- 
directed self -activity,) 




FRANCIS BACON. 



*We follow mainly Bacon's " De Auj^mentis Scientiarum " (vol. vi., ch 4). 
''rhe "Novum Organum " and "Advancement of Learning " have also been 
quoted. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 21 

3. ** The end of knowledge is the glory of the Creator 
and the relief of man's estate." 

4. '' The earliest education is as important for the 
whole life, as good care for plants in the time of ger- 
mination." 

5. '' Instruction in public schools has great advantages 
over private instruction ; for there is more of emulation, 
attention, and example." 

6. Great care is to be exercised in the selection of 
subjects of study. 

7. There should not be too much restraint. After 
the tasks are learned the children should have sufficient 
liberty to play and v/ork for themselves at that which 
interests them individually. 

8. There are two chief methods : one proceeds from 
the easy to the difficult, the other exercises power by 
beginnmg with the difficult. Both methods should be 
connected. 

9. It is necessary to provide plenty of exercises. But 
there must be change and variety, lest mistakes be ex- 
ercised along with the rest. 

This is particularly the case where something is 
"drilled" that has not been fully and rightly compre- 
hended by the pupils. 

10. All notions that are not derived from the observa- 
tion of the nature of the things,, are idols that obscure 
human understanding and hide nature behind a dark 
veil ; they give knowledge of words, but not of things. 
Hence nature must be contemplated with the eyes in- 
stead of studying it from books. " Man, the servant 
and interpreter of nature, can do and understand so 
much, and so much only, as he has observed in fact 
or in thought in the course of nature ; beyond that he 
neither knows anything nor can do anything." To 
penetrate into the recesses of nature, the mind must be 
led to particulars and their series and order, and must 
lay aside its preconceived, false notions and become 
familiar with facts. "All depends on keeping the eye 
steadfastly fixed upon the facts, and so receiving their 
images simply as they are ; for God forbid that we 
should give out a dream of our own imagination for a 
pattern of the world." 



22 GREAT TEACHERS 

^be Scventeentb Centura* 



BEGINNING OF REFORM IN PEDAGOGICS. 

Ratich* (1571-1634) made an attempt to introduce 
principles of Bacon's philosophy in pedagogics. But as 
he aimed at notoriety and self-aggrandisement rather 
than the good of education, his work lost much of its 
force. By his agitations for school reform he prepared 
the way for the later masters in the educational field ; 
that is perhaps his greatest merit, Comenius accom- 
plished infinitely more : he worked with disinterested 
2eal for the elevation of the people and framed a system 
of education that up to this day has not been excelled 
in harmonious completeness. He built on Bacon and 
adopted what appeared sound from Ratich's system. 
Latin, which up to that time was considered the one and 
all in education, was forced into the background and 
instruction in the mother-tongue pushed to the front. 
Comenius demanded that teaching should begin with an 
actual observation of things and not with a verbal de- 
scription of them, and should follow the natural develop- 
ment of the mind. He elevated education to the rank 
of an art, regulated by a distinctive theory. 

John Amos Comenius. (1593-1671.) 

Comenius (Komensky), the 
most influential educationist 
of the seventeenth century, 
was born at Hungarian- 
Brod, Moravia, March 28, 
1592, and died at Amsterdam, 
Holland, Nov. 15, 1671. His 
early education was neglected. 
It was not till the age of six- 
teen that he entered a Latin 
school. He attended the aca- 
demy at Herborn and studied 
theology and philosophy at 
Heidelberg. 

As teacher of a school at 




J. A. COMENIUS. 



*0r Ratke. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 23 

Prerau, he attempted a reform of teaching after the plan 
of Ratke's "Improvement of Instruction." In 1618, he 
became pastor of the Moravian church at Fulnek, at the 
same time directing and supervising the work of a 
school. Believing that the want of good and methodi- 
cally arranged school-books was mainly responsible for 
the wretched state of instruction, he set out to write 
such books. But the Thirty Years' war had broken out, 
and when, in 1621, Fulnek was ransacked by the Spani- 
ards, Comenius lost all his manuscripts, together with 
his library and the greater part of his property. In 
1628, he left for Leszna, Poland. Here a number of the 
exiled Moravian Brethren had settled. Comenius was 
appointed principal of their academy. 

He published his first great work, the "Janua 
Linguarum Reserata" (Door of Languages Unlocked),* 
in 1631. The master work of Comenius, the " Didactica 
Magna," written originally in Bohemian, appeared in a 
Latin translation about 1638. An abstract of this book 
was published in England. The "Didactica" was the 
first complete systematic treatise on education ever 
written. The best known of the works of Comenius is the 
"Orbis Pictus " (The World in Pictures), the first picture 
book for the sytematic instruction of children. It ap- 
peared at Nuremberg, in 1657, and was for almost two 
centuries the most popular text-took for the instruction 
of children. Goethe writes that in his childhood there 
was no other book of the kind used. Basedow's " Ele- 
mentary" was modeled after the plan of the " Orbis 
Pictus." Pestalozzi made use in his school of either 
the book of Comenius or that of Basedow. Froebel was 
well acquainted with it. In New England, New York, 
and Pennsylvania, probably also in other colonies, it 
was to be found in many households at the beginning of 
the i8th century. To-day, quite a number of teach- 
ers are using it as a guide for language lessons. 

Comenius .received flattering offers from Sweden, 
England, Holland, and Transylvania, to reform the sys- 
tems of public instruction there, after his plan. In 1639, 
according to Cotton Mather, he was invited to the 

* It was, shortly after its publication, translated into 12 European and 4 
Oriental languages. 



24 GREAT TEACHERS 

United States to accept the presidency of Harvard 
college, but declined. 

PRINCIPLES OF TEACHING. 

The Aim. — Man is by his Creator endowed with cer- 
tain powers, ** the seeds of intelligence, virtue, and god- 
liness." It is his appointed life-duty to strive for that 
perfection which best prepares him for his future eternal 
state of being in and with God. This perfection con- 
sists in the acquisition of intelligence, virtue, and piety 
and is attained by education. Hence, it is the object 
of education so to direct and control the development 
of man's innate powers that he may fulfill his destiny 
wisely and conscientiously. 

Universal Education. — ''We cannot cut a Mercury 
out of every piece of wood," writes Comenius, quoting 
a Greek author, and adds : ''but we can make a man of 
every human being." Hence, " all must be educated — 
the feeble-minded to overcome dullness, the gifted that 
their mind might not turn to the useless and harm- 
ful." 

Rules for Teaching. — Standing on the maxim, " We 
learn to do a thing by doing it,'' Comenius makes self-act- 
ivity the basis of development. All that is required of 
education is to stimulate and direct it and to remove 
obstacles that block the way of healthy growth. This 
is accomplished by following the principle, " Teach in 
accordance with the laws of nature'' The following rules 
are deductions from this principle : 

1. Follow the natural development of the mind. 

2. "Instruction must begin with a real observation of 
things, and not with a verbal description of them." 
(First the idea, then the word.) 

3. Be progressive as well as thorough. 

4. Proceed from the near to the remote ; from the 
easy to the difficult ; from the simple to the complex ; 
from the known to the unknown. 

5. Not many things, but much ! i^Non multa, sed 
multu?n.) 

6. Adapt the studies to the capacity of the pupil. 

7. Assign no task until the method of doing it has 
been taught. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 25 

8. Things naturally connected in themselves should 
be joined together in teaching. 

9. Skill and self-reliance is attained by practice. 

10. ''Teach the practical use of knowledge." 

" By doing, and not till then, does man reach the state 
of true being." 

Condition of the Elementary Schools. 

The elementary schools after the Reformation were 
wretchedly poor, and continued in this state till late into 
the i8th century. They were state institutions, it is 
true, but the churches had full administrative powers, 
the governments simply holding them responsible for 
the instruction of the young and supplying the required 
funds. The general belief was that the safety and wel- 
fare of society depended on the Church, which ac- 
cordingly had been placed under the direct control of 
the State. If the government desired any changes in 
the policy of the schools it directed the Church to make 
them, thus recognizing it as the responsible agent in all 
matters educational. The duties of minister and school- 
master were frequently combined. Where this was not 
the case the teacher was appointed by an ecclesiastical 
body, and had to give a pledge " to submit to the dis- 
cipline of the Church and to teach the children the cat- 
echism and such other knowledge which is useful to 
them." This made him an officer in the Church. 

The progress that had been made in education since 
the close of the medieval age was, briefly told : (i) ele- 
mentary schools were established and maintained by the 
government; (2) some instruction was given in the 
mother-tongue ; (3) the aim was to benefit the individ- 
ual child, and not merely to advance the interests of the 
Church. In some countries, notably Holland and Swe- 
den, great improvement was made also in the discipline 
and methods of the schools. But, taking it all in all, 
the educational practice differed but little from that in 
vogue before the Reformation. The Thirty Years' War 
followed and interrupted the reforms that were at- 
tempted. Elementary education continued in a low 
state until late into the i8th century ; in fact, until Base- 



26 GREAT TEACHERS 

dow began his agitations and effected a complete change 
in school-room practice. 

At the beginning of the i8th century there were to be 
found villages that had no schools whatever. In others 
the worst building of the whole place served as school- 
house and dwelling of the teacher, and often also of his 
domestic animals. The average village school-room 
was a most miserable, low, and dirty place. Ventilation 
was not at all provided for. Dust, filth, and a foul at- 
mosphere characterized the room where children were 
expected to remain for hours, forced into low and nar- 
row seats without any backpiece. The health, comfort, 
and happiness of the little ones was entirely disre- 
garded. It often happened that during the cold and 
stormy winter days the school-room could not be 
warmed, either for lack of fuel, or because the stove 
was in need of repairs. 

The school-houses of the large cities were in some- 
what better condition, and were at least supplied with 
the necessaries. But their appearance was not at all 
inviting in the light of to-day ; they looked like gloomy 
prisons. Windows were scarce, and the school-rooms 
low, dismal, and ill-ventilated. 

The children were taught the four R's, to wit, readin', 
'ritin, 'rithmetic, and religion. In some schools they 
did not teach arithmetic, and we read that in Prussia, for 
instance, " nearly every community was set in an uproar 
when it became known that the daughters of the peas- 
ants were to learn not only the catechism, but also writ- 
ing." 

In those days good common school-teachers were 
scarce. Anybody was considered good enough for the 
office who could be hired cheap. The people turned 
the school over to adventurers, discharged soldiers, 
artisans who, for lack of skill could find no other em- 
ployment, migrating students of theology, day-laborers, 
and others equally unqualified. These knights of the 
whistling rod were accordingly held in contempt. If a 
man of good repute became a schoolmaster he was re- 
garded with suspicion ; some would think that he was a 
rogue in saint's garb who had low objects in view, and 
the more charitable people would decide that he was 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 27 

doing penance for some secret crime. In Prussia, ac- 
cording to Buesching, " the council of education," of 
wliich he was himself a member, " used every possible 
means to abolish the continued use of the cane, and 
to prevent non-commissioned officers addicted to brandy^ 
from being appointed to the office of teachers of the 
higher and lower schools. The king {^Frederick the Great), 
however, insisted that his invalids should be provided for, 
and they were, therefore, found almost universally fill- 
ing the offices of village schoolmasters." 

The work of the school-keepers is soon told ; they 
were to give tasks, hear lessons, and enforce quiet and 
order. The greatest part of their time in school was 
taken up by what passed under the name of religious 
instruction. The pupils were to stuff their memories 
with just so many prayers, a large number of passages 
from the Bible, an equal number of misrhymed hymns, 
several pages of dogmas and polemics, an array of 
manufactured theological terms, Luther's Smaller Cate- 
chism, with all imaginable notes, explanations, etc.; 
in short, enough of nearly all religious material to start 
a faith-hope-and-charity consuming fire in the children's 
hearts. Next in order of importance was reading, a 
sort of continuous oral spelling. Writing, some count- 
ing, and perhaps also Latin, took up the rest of the time. 

The dull monotony of instruction was diversified only 
by the different modes of punishment, from the holding 
out a Bible for an hour, or learning by heart the 119th 
Psalm, down to the whistling of the ever ready bacu- 
lum. Half of the time the children were unemployed. 
This was perhaps the greatest misfortune, a greater one 
at least than the drudgery of the tasks. 

Goehring, a German educationist, writes of the 
school-books: "The few sexton-schools had to be satis- 
fied with the Bible and the catechism, the colleges with 
a conglomeration of classic anecdotes, moral sentences, 
and devotional- tirades botched up after ancient patterns. 
If any one dared to introduce a sheet of geographical 
or natural historic generalities, he got the reputation of 
being more than original, and of entertaining revolu- 
tionary ideas. Very often instruction in the native lan- 
guage was not at all provided for." 



28 GREAT TEACHERS 

Z\)z leigbteentb Century. 

Education Built on a Psychological Basis. 

Comenius lived in a stormy age. His whole manhood 
was coincident with the Thirty Years' War and the in- 
surrections that followed in its train. It is not sur- 
prising, therefore, that the plans of education that he 
proposed did not immediately go into effect. A period 
of complete exhaustion of the people followed. Com- 
merce, manufacture, agriculture, the trades and profes- 
sions had suffered greatly. The struggle for material 
existence absorbed all interests. An ideal plan of edu- 
cation could not satisfy the people ; it wanted tangible 
results— something that would make the children practi- 
cal wage-earners. This desire asserted itself in peda- 
gogics. Locke came forward with a scheme for the 
bringing up of practical "gentlemen;" Basedow con- 
tinued and extended it so as to embrace the bourgeoisie 
and to supply the world with wise rulers, good profes- 
sional men, practical business men, skilled mechanics 
etc. ^ Pestalozzi started out to help the farmers and to 
furnish the children of the poor in general with the 
knowledge and skill necessary to lighten the burden of 
their lot. Material happiness was for a while the end 
for which the educationists labored. But although 
these men started out with so low an aim in view, their 
conception of education broadened gradually,' and 
when they finally gave to the world the result of their 
investigations, they presented schemes more perfect than 
there had ever been shown before. More perfect, we say 
because they placed education on a firm basi?— the laws 
of the inner life of man. This progress gave a new 
turn to pedagogic investigation ; it led to the final es- 
tabhshment of principles and onward to the construc- 
tion of a science of education. 

I. Discovering a close resemblance between the laws 
governing the conditions and growth of the outer world 
and those of the inner life of man, Comenius made the 
former the guides of education. Hence, although aim- 
ing at mind culture, he built mainly on a logical founda- 
tion. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 29 

2. Locke devoted himself to the study of the human 
mind and what he gained thereby he introduced into 
his plan of education, thus substituting psychological 
principles for those derived from the organization of 
the outer world. He also gave a deeper meaning to the 
oft-repeated demand for adaptation of educational 
effort to the individuality of the pupil, '' Each man's 
mind," he wrote, ^' has some peculiarity, as well as his 
face, that distinguishes him from all others ; and there 
are scarcely two children who can be conducted by 
exactly the same method." Locke pointed out a psy- 
chological basis for the method of teaching. His aim 
was merely utilitarian in character ; the pupil was to be 
prepared to become an intelligent, active, and useful 
member of society. Whatever the usage of the world or 
the standard of fitness, would then be the aim of edu- 
cation. This narrow view, which cuts off all strife for 
an ideal humanity, was upheld also by Basedow. 

3. Basedow undertook to revolutionize the practice 
of education, following in this mainly the theory of 
Locke. His plan was based on psychological laws, as 
he understood them. He was a practical teacher all his 
life and could give more definite and applicable rules 
for education than Locke and later Rousseau, who never 
had any experience in actual school work. Hence he 
accomplished more thantheyand other theorists before 
him. He came to the conclusion that in order to teach 
in accordance with psychological laws, mere knowledge 
of the things to be taught was of least importance, un- 
derstanding of the nature of the children and how to teach 
the principal qualification of the teacher. His one mis- 
take was that he aimed only at usefulness and ignored 
too much the higher purpose o-f life. 

4. Rousseau chose a higher standard than either 
Locke or Basedow ; he aimed at the most complete de- 
velopment of the individual man. His plan was that of 
Locke, so modified as to be in conformity with his idea 
of the end to be reached. He gave a new and powerful 
impulse to the study of the child and exploded the 
purely utilitarian idea of education. Pestalozzi caught the 
spirit of this educational message and was inspired with 
the thought to help advance the education of the people. 



30 



GREAT TEACHERS 



5. Through the influence of Pestalozzi the truth that 
all education must proceed in accordance with psychol- 
ogical laws was established for all times. The end he 
aimed at was '' harmonious development of ^//powers." 

John Locke. (1632- 1704.) 

Locke, the illustrious English philosopher, was born 
at Wrighton, in Somerset- 
shire, August 29, 1632, and 
died at Oates, in Essex, Oc- 
tober 28, 1704. His greatest 
work, the Essay Conco'ning Hu- 
man Understanding^ was pub- 
lished in 1690, about fifty years 
after the appearance of Com- 
enius' Didactica Magna^ and 
soon became famous all over 
Europe. This was followed 
in 1693 by his pedagogic treat- 
ise, the Thoughts on Education. 
His well-known book on The 
Conduct of the Understanding 




JOHN LOCKE. 



appeared after his death. 

OUTLINE OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS, 

1. The keynote of education is contained in the 
ancient diY>^or\sm, A Soimd Mifid in a Sound Body. Edu- 
cation must begin at the earliest possible period in life. 
The body must be hardened to become a healthy and 
hardy servant of the mind. The mind must be trained 
to virtue, subjecting passion and mental appetites to 
reason and conscience. More clearly defined, the ob- 
ject of education is to give a human being wisdom, or 
power to manage his business ably and with foresight in 
this world, good breeding, knowledge of the world, vir- 
tue, industry, and a love of reputation. 

2. Discipline. — Children, when little, should look 
upon their parents as their absolute governors, and as 
such stand in awe of them ; when they come to riper 
years, they should look on them as their best frie^ids, 
and as such love and respect them. Children who have 
been most chastised, seldom make the best men ; cor- 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 31 

poral punishment is, hence, to be reserved for cases of 
obstinacy. Appeals to the child's sense of honor and 
shame are to be employed. To flatter children by re- 
wards of things that are pleasant to them is carefully to 
be avoided. Make but few laws, but see that they will 
be well observed when once made. " He that has found 
a way how to keep up a child's spirit, easy, active, and 
free, and yet at the same time to restrain him from 
many things he has a mind to, and to draw him to things 
that are uneasy to him ; he, I say, that knows how to 
reconcile these seeming contradictions, has, in my opin- 
ion, got the true secret of education." 

3. Individuality of the Child. — "God has stamped 
certain characters upon men's minds, which like their 
shapes, may perhaps be a little mended, but can hardly 
be totally altered and transformed into the contrary." 

4. General Remarks. — {a) Locke's state of health 
was very precarious ; he was a physician : Emphasizes 
the importance of physical training, care of health, an^ 
hardening of the body. 

{b) Was the tutor of the son of a nobleman : (i) pre- 
fers private education to the public school, (2) aims at 
educating a " gentleman," (3) demands that the indi- 
vidual nature and aptitude of the pupil be consid- 
ered. 

John Bernard Basedow. (1723-1790.) 

Basedow was born at 
Hamburg, September 12, 
1723. He attended the 
Johanneum, a renowned 
classic high school of his 
native city, and continued 
his education at Leipzig, 
where he studied theology 
and philosophy. From 
1749 to 1753 he was the 
tutor of a little boy at 
Borghorst, Holstein. This 
marked the beginning of 
J. B. BASEDOW. his educational reform work. 

His original method of teaching created quite a sensa- 




32 GREAT TEACHERS 

tion in his time. His success encouraged him to pub- 
lish a Latin dissertation, " On the best and hitherto un- 
known Method of Teaching the Children of Noblemen," 
which he presented to the University of Kiel, in 1752. 
He attacked in this pamphlet the faulty, unnatural 
methods then in vogue, and proposed a shorter and 
more pleasant way, which he called " the natural way 
of teaching children." This was followed in the same 
year by an " Account of how said Method was actually 
put into Practice and what it has effected." In 1753, 
he became professor of a Danish academy. There he 
wrote the '' Practical Philosophy " which appeared in 
1758. Two chapters, ^' On Education " and "On the 
Instruction of Children," gave an outline of his plan of 
a system of education. Afterwards he was a teacher in 
Altona. He continued his agitations for reform by 
writing a great number of books, the most valuable of 
which were the ''Appeal to Philanthropists and Wealthy 
Men, Respecting Schools and Studies and their Influ- 
ence on the General Good, "and the "Book of Methods," 
his famous manual of instruction. In 1774, he estab- 
lished the Philanthropin at Dessau, a model school in 
which his plans were put in operation. This institu- 
tion continued for twenty years. Its influence has done 
more to banish abuses from the school-rooms than all 
that had been said and written up to that time. Base- 
dow died at Magdeburg, July 24, 1790. 

OUTLINE OF EDUCATIONAL IDEAS. 

Some General Principles. — i. " The aim of educa- 
tion shall be to prepare children to lead a generally 
useful, patriotic, and happy life." 

2. Education is development and exercise of the 
child's mental and physical powers. 

3. The formation of character is of greater worth 
than the acquisition of knowledge. 

4. Everything according to the laws of Nature. 

5. Sense-perception is the basis of all knowing. 
Principles of Instruction. — i. The primary object 

of education should never be forgotten. 

2. "Instruction as pleasant as its nature permits." 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 33 

3. ** Proceed from the easy to the difficult in 'elemen- 
ary ' order." 

4. Facts are worth more than words. 

5. " Not much, but downright useful knowledge, which 
can never be forgotten without proving a great loss to 
the individual." 

Physical and Manual Training. — It is the duty of 
the educator to look to the preservation of health, and 
to strengthen and exercise the physical powers of the 
child. " Wrestling and the other parts of gymnastics 
or exercises of the body should be restored." 

Manual training, drawing, and painting are necessary 
parts in a complete education. 

Family, School, and State. — Parents are naturally 
the first rightful and most responsible educators. They 
should consult with experienced and successful edu- 
cators on the best means and methods. " It is neces- 
sary for a good education that children have much in- 
tercourse with children." Parents must co-operate 
with the school. 

Public school education is of greater worth than that 
by private tutors. 

All schools should be under state control. Special 
attention is to be given to the sanitary condition and 
equipment of school-houses. A council composed of 
competent educators is to examine and appoint teach- 
ers, and to be held responsible to the nation for those to 
whom they entrust the education of children. 

Competent teachers should be given a certificate of 
good character and professional' capacity by the coun- 
cil of education. After a few years of successful work 
in the school-room they should be appointed for life, 
without an exa77iination^ and if they discharge their duties 
faithfully, they ought to receive a reward from the state. 

result. 

Basedow has written about one hundred books, some 
of them very voluminous, and through them has con- 
tributed much to the advancement of education. But 
the greatest and most effective of his works was the 
establishment of the Philanthropin. It revolutionized 
educational practice and prepared the way for the doc- 



34 GREAT TEACHERS 

trines of Pestalozzi and Froebel. The introduction of 
gymnastics and manual training into the schools we owe 
directly to the influence of that institution, Schlosser, 
a German historian, who, by the way, was not at all an 
admirer of Basedow, sums up its effects as follows : 
"The whole nature of the school system has undergone 
a thorough change among us in our century, in some 
places earlier and in some later. The authorities awoke 
from their long slumber as a new generation took their 
seats. German institutions were established, in which 
an education was given calculated to qualify men for 
the practical business life ; the middle classes were 
trained and taught as their circumstances of life re- 
quired them to be ; and the female sex, whose educa- 
tion had previously been completely neglected, was 
rescued from the servile condition to which it had 
been condemned." 

Jean Jacques Rousseau. (171 2-1 778.) 

Rousseau was born in Geneva, June 28, 17 12, and 
died at Ermenonville, near Paris, July 2, 1778. Some 
one has summed up his life and 
work in this laconic criticism : 
" Jean Jacques Rousseau was bor?i 
at Geneva, thought at Paris, wrote 
at Montmorency, //^^/<;^^ and /<?;'- 
mented himself everywhere. His 
body he left to Ermenonville, his 
head to Emile, his heart to Julia, 
and in his Social Contract he be- 
queathed to the world the rest- 
less?2ess of his soul." The Social 
Contract became the text-book of 
the French Revolution. ^^ La 
Noiivelle Heloise (Julia), written to 
turn all hearts to nature for the sources of highest and 
purest delights, stands to-day unrivaled in beauty of de- 
scription, the masterwork of a poetic genius. Emile has 
become a classic in the literature of education. 

THE KERNEL OF THE " EMILE." 

The ideal aim of education is happiness, Absolute 




OF FOUR CENTURIES. 35 

happiness is an impossibility. He who knows best how 
to support the good and the evil of life, is the best edu- 
cated. The master-work of education is to make a 
reasonable, self-reliant man. The educator's guide is 
the order of nature, as exemplified in the natural devel- 
opment of man's physical and psychical powers. Self- 
reliance is reached through self-activity. 

Happiness, according to Rousseau, is to be found 
only in the original state of mankind ; hence the more 
man approaches truly natural life, the better he is edu- 
cated. To carry out this purpose he demands of the 
educator to give as much play room as possible to the 
self-development of the child which, he holds, is natur- 
ally good. All the educator has to do, particularly in 
the first year of infancy, is, according to Rousseau, 
'' chiefly to prevent that anything is done. " The first 
education is to be " purely negative. " Instruction is 
not excluded from his plan. Hence he gives room to 
the exertion of a positive influence of the educator on 
his pupil. But experience is to precede instruction at 
all times. It is of little if any value to teach the sci- 
ences; the main thing is that an inclination is awakened 
in the child for them and that the means by which 
to learn them are brought within his reach. 

Rousseau's masterly educational paradox, the 
^' Emile," contains many valuable suggestions as to the 
study of child nature. He knew the child well ; he had 
studied him as he had found him in the palaces of the 
wealthy and in the huts of the lowly; he knew his whims, 
his feelings, and desires; even his vices had not escaped 
his observant eye. He pictured him as he was, avoid- 
ing all generalizing and entering into psychological 
discussions. That struck home. Parents recognized 
their children and the sources of their vices and virtues. 
That made the " Emile " a power in education that had 
before, in practice at least, proceeded as if all children 
were alike and their minds so many empty receptacles 
that had only to be filled with book knowledge to make 
them educated. A psychologic basis was established on 
which pedagogics could build its theory and practice, 
and abundant material was brought together with which 
to construct such a basis. 



36 



GREAT TEACHERS 

Z\)c IRineteentb Century* 




J. H. PESTALOZZI. 



John Henry Pestalozzi. (1746-1827.) 

Pestalozzi was born at Zurich, January 12, 1746. His 
whole life was consecrated to the uplifting of the poor, 
suppressed people of Switzer- 
land. As student in the Uni- 
versity of Zurich he joined the 
collegiate association of patriots 
that fought against unjust op- 
pression of the people and aimed 
at an ideal social organization. 
Pestalozzi wrote a number of 
articles for the "Monitor" of 
the patriots, in which he em- 
bodied his first ideas of social 
reform. He left the university 
in 1765 and turned to agriculture 
to found a home and also to 
help the poor by setting an 
example of improved farming. He was convinced that 
the condition of the people could not be made better 
by doing it for them, but by enabling them through 
education to do it themselves. 

In 1774 he founded a farm school for the children of 
the poor at Neuhof to carry out his ideas. The scheme 
proved a failure, and left him nearly bankrupt. Eighteen 
years of poverty followed. In this time the great phil- 
anthropist wrote books on education that made him 
famous. The first work, '' Evening Hour of a Hermit," 
appeared in 1780; then followed his epoch-making 
"Leonhard and Gertrude, a Book for the People," in 
1781. The latter work won the hearts of the people 
over to his educational ideas and attracted the atten- 
tion of great thinkers of the age. He continued to 
write until 1798 when the effect of the French revolu- 
tion on the country decided him to leave his hermit- 
age. " I want to be a schoolmaster," he said, and v/ent 
to Stanz at the invitation of the government to take 
charge of the children that had been left orphans after 
the devastation of the town by the French. The next 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 37 

year (1799) he became teacher at Burgdorf. His method 
of teaching met with opposition, and the civic authori- 
ties ordered an investigation. The result was favorable. 
The committee reported : " He understands how to 
call out the powers of the child, each one in particular, 
and to develop and so exercise the natural gifts that 
pupils of various abilities have made a surprising pro- 
gress. Pupils eight years of age formerly could hardly 
read, now there are several among them that are able 
to write, draw, and figure. Pestalozzi has understood 
even to inculcate in them a love of geography, of natural 
history, of geometry." In 1800 Pestalozzi founded a 
private school together with Herman Krusi. This con- 
tinued for two years. It prospered and became cele- 
brated. Many foreigners who had heard of its success 
visited the institution, foremost among them Herbart 
who became greatly interested in the Pestalozzian prin- 
ciples of teaching. 

In 1801 Pestalozzi published " How Gertrude Teaches 
Her Children," a book that contained ideas on educa- 
tion and instruction that his experiences in the school- 
room had proven to be sound and good. 

After that he taught for some time at Munchen- 
buchsee. In 1805, began his work at Yverdon; his fame as 
a^' prophet of the people " attracted pupils from far and 
wide. There was no end of visitors, among them many 
celebrated Europeans and Americans, particularly 
teachers ; even kings and princes came to see the great 
teacher at Yverdon. 

In 1825 Pestalozzi, retired and went to Neuhof. His 
last writings were " My Experiences " and the famous 
*' Song of the Swan " in which he bequeathed to posterity 
the treasure of his ideas. He died February 17, 1827, 
a,t Brugg. 

"■All for others, nothing for himself ;' which is inscribed 
on his monument, tells the story of his life. His edu- 
cational work began with the founding of a house of 
refuge and closed with the establishment of a school for 
children of the poor. 

FUNDAMENTAL IDEAS. 

I. The problem and aim of education is harmonious 



38 GREAT TEACHERS 

development of all powers. *'As physical nature un- 
folds its powers in accordance with eternal, immutable 
laws, so also human nature is subjected in its develop- 
ment to similar laws. On these laws pedagogics must 
be based. All instruction and all education must have 
2, psychological foundation J education and instruction must 
proceed in accordance with the same laws that nature 
itself follows. The method looks upon the soul of the 
child not as a tabula rasa that must first be written upon 
from without, nor as an empty, hollow vessel that is to 
be filled with foreign matter in order to contain some- 
thing, but as a real, living, self-dependent power that 
unfolds itself with the first moment of its existence, after 
its own laws." 

2, (a) " Moral Culture is the pure unfolding of 
human willing through the higher feelings of love, grati- 
tude, and confidence as they express themselves as ger- 
minating in the pure relation between child and mother. 
The aim of this culture is the moral perfecting of our 
nature ; its means are exercises in the desire for moral 
feeling, thinking, and doing." 

{b) " Intellectual Culture is the pure unfolding 
of human ability, or our power of reason through a most 
simple habituating of its use. The aim of intellectual 
development is to produce in man clear concepts. The 
starting point of knowledge is sense perception, the end 
the raising of the sense-percept to the concept." 

(c) " Physical Culture is the pure development of 
ability or the many-sided physical powers within man 
through the simple habituating of their use. The start- 
ing point of this unfolding is movement, the aim, 
power, graceful carriage, and skill in handicrafts and 
arts." 

3. Spontaneity and self-activity are the necessary 
conditions under which the mind educates itself, and 
gains power and independence. *' Nature develops all 
the human faculties by practice, and their growth de- 
pends on their exercise." 

summary. 
Pestalozzi is justly honored as the founder of modern 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 



39 



pedagogics. His influence, particularly on elementary 
education, has been prodigiously powerful. The primary 
school of to-day is built on his foundation principles. 
His ideas have immortal power. They have been 
further developed by his followers, practically by Dies- 
terwegand Froebel, theoretically by Herbart and Beneke. 
Rosenkranz, whose work on the '' Philosophy of Educa- 
tion" is well known to American educators, was a 
Pestalozzian. Herbert Spencer also should be men- 
tioned among the illustrious followers of the great 
teacher of Yverdon. 

Denzel, whose works were former.y very extensively 
read in our country and have contributed much to the 
development of the object lessons, so called, was not 
strictly speaking a disciple of Pestalozzi, but he built 
his system on the same basis; ''sense-perception 
(observation) is the absolute foundation of all know- 
ing." 

Frederick Froebel. (1782-1852.) 

Froebel the founder of the kindergarten system, was 
born at Oberweissenbach, in the Thuringian forest, 
April 21, 1782. He became a forester, studied at Jena, 
took up agriculture, was for a time employed in the 

government service, and, in 
1805, accepted a position 
as teacher at Frankfort. 
From here he went for two 
years to Pestalozzi's school 
at Yverdon. He continued 
his studies at Gottingen and 
Berlin, then enlisted in the 
army, and in 181 7 opened an 
educational institution at 
Keilhau, together with two 
other teachers. Here he 
published his pedagogic 
ideas, in a work on "The Ed- 
ucation of Man " In 1840 
he founded the first kinder- 
garten at Blankenburg, Thuringia. He died June 21, 
1852. His motto was : '' Come let us live for our child- 




Freidrich Frcebel. 



40 GREAT TEACHERS 

ren,'^ then the life of our children will bring us peace and 
joy,then we will commence to become wiser, to be wiser." 

PURPOSE OF THE KINDERGARTEN. 

Kindergarten means children's garden. The teacher 
is to be a gardener, whose business it is to develop the 
natural capabilities of the human plants under his 
charge ; not by hot-house forcing, but by patient cultiva- 
tion of bodily and mental health and vigor, especially of 
the feelings of sympathy and affection to each other, 
and of love and gratitude to their parents and their 
heavenly Father. 

Froebel agreed with Petalozzi, whose immediate dis- 
ciple he was, that the j'^r^/ education of the child is of 
greatest importance for his future destiny. To this 
task he devoted his whole life. With the kindergarten 
he intended to offer a substitute to the children of the 
poor whose mothers could not find time to educate them 
and also to supplement home education, to open a wider 
sphere of activity for the child, to lead him out of the 
narrow circle of the nursery into intercourse with his 
equals, to bring him early into nature and to nature, into 
the garden and through the garden, and to cultivate all 
his mental capabilities by means of play in order to pre- 
pare him that he would derive the highest possible ben- 
efit from the instruction of the school. At the same 
time he aimed to give an example to the home for the 
bringing up of children and to prepare the feminine sex 
for an intelligent performance of the duties of mother- 
hood. To carry out the latter purpose a training school 
for future educators was to be connected with every 
kindergarten ihose attending it to assist the kinder- 
gartener in the care for the little ones. Hence an insti- 
tution that has no higher aims than to take care of 
infants until they are old enough to enter school, is not 
a kindergarten, but merely a care school. 

Froebel said that the kindergarten is to give employ- 
ment to the children ''suited to their nature, to 

* This is usually rendered : " Come let us live with our children. " But 
that is not what Froebel meant to say. What he aimed at was that the edu- 
cator should \\we./or the children ; his whole life was to be devoted to the 
education of the child, as that all he would think and do was, to be, not for 
his own benefit, but for the benefit of his pupils. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 41 

strengthen the bodies, to exercise their senses and to 
occupy the awakening mind, to make them symbolically 
acquainted with nature and mankind, particularly also 
to guide heart and soul rightly and lead it to the source 
and foundation of all life, to unity with itself." This 
problem is to be solved in a garden, where this is possi- 
ble, and by a carefully selected and systematized series 
of toys with the use of which conversation and singing 
is to be combined. To have the educative influence of 
these exercises begin at the very earliest stage of men- 
tal life, Froebel wrote the '* Mother and Caressing 
Songs, " a guide for the method of treating the infant in 
the cradle. 

Froebel distinguishes motion and mental games. The 
former exercise the limbs and senses ; the latter, the 
mental capabilities. The mental games are : playing 
with the ball, the cube, and the cylinder, and building 
games with the cube, which is divided in various ways. 
All this is systematically arranged and divided into six 
. groups or stages. For each of these stages he offers a 
special play gift. 

T\i^ first gift is a box containing six balls, three of the 
primary and three of mixed colors, arranged after the 
colors of the prism. The second gift offers the cube and 
the cylinder ; and the third, a cube divided into eight 
equal parts, everyone of which is a perfect cube. The 
fourth, fifth, and sixth gifts are progressively modified 
divisions of the cube. Through the acquaintance with 
body forms, the child arrives at a knowledge oi\\\^ plane. 
This is cultivated by games with tablets. Familiarity 
with the forms of planes prepares for the apprehension 
oi lines. Here colored j-Z/r/'i" are the toys. The appre- 
hension and observation of the points. Seeds, pebbles, 
shells, beads, etc.^ may pass for representatives. Per- 
forating is the game that illustrates the connection of 
points in the line. If these "points" made with the 
perforating needle are connected by seivitig, or if they 
are made with pencil or pen on slate or paper and con- 
nected by drawing, lines are constructed and these de- 
velop into forms, etc. With sticks and strips of paper 
to represent lines, planes and bodies are constructed. 
The four ways of doing this, as shown by Froebel, afford 



42 GREAT TEACHERS 

the following games : (i) stick plaiting j (2) lacing of paper 
strips or stiff ribbons; {t,) paper plaiting (this maybe fol- 
lowed by plaiting of straw, etc., and even basket making), 
and (4) pease work. These games prepare for others, 
which follow in this order: paper folding, paper cutting, 
paper work proper, pasteboard work, and modeling in 
wax, loam, clay, etc. 

Songs accompany many of the games mentioned. 
But the child is to be led also ijito nature to nature^ i. e., 
to communication with nature. That is why Froebel 
wanted his kindergarten to be ar^dt/garden. The mere 
being in the free air makes the child at home in nature. 
It enters self actively into the life of nature by gar- 
den work and by playing with and taking care of ani7?ials. 

To exercise the child's bodily powers Froebel arranged 
motion ga?nes. These are divided into four groups : 
marching ; representation games ( imitating sounds, move- 
ments, etc., that have been observed, as for instance, our 
" This is the way the sawyer does, " or " The mill, " etcy) 
running and racing, 2,xiA pure games^ where amusement 
is all that is aimed at. To these motion games Froebel 
adds various ball ga?nes. 

Froebel loved the little ones, and it is this self-sacri- 
ficing love that made him great. He had studied the 
little child on the playground and contributed many 
valuable ideas to educational psychology. But he made 
a mistake similar to that of Comenius. After he had 
become convinced of the importance of the child's play 
impulse in education, he tried to bring union and har- 
mony into the natural laws, both of mind and matter, 
and was often led astray in his speculations. He was 
more a poet than a practical, scientific investigator of 
child-nature. Hence the symbolizing in his system, so 
charming to the adult, but to the little child only too 
often merely superficial play. His play system contains 
much healthful thought, but also many things that go to 
show that he has at times completely misinterpreted 
the child's natural mental appetite. 

Wichard Lange, Koehler, and Mrs. Mahrenholz-Bulow, 
and many other Germans have labored zealously for the 
development of Froebel's idea. Through the earnest 
efforts of Miss Peabody they were naturalized in this 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 43 

country and have exerted a powerful influence on edu- 
cation. To-day the number of Froebelians is legion. 
Some among them have attempted to bring the ideas of 
their master on a safer psychologic basis and thus con- 
tributed greatly to their development. Others seem to 
believe that the evolution of pedagogics ended with 
Froebel; they adore him and all he has said and thought ; 
*'The master says so," is their shibboleth, and forget that 
education is a never ending progress. The majority 
prove by their declamatory generalities that they have 
staid behind in the strife for a firm, sound, and lasting 
theory of education. The kindergarten has set itself a 
grand ideal. Declamation does not bring it within 
reach. There must be advance all along the line, in the 
study of the child nature, as well as in the administering 
to its needs. '^ Come let us live for our children ! " 

John Frederick Herbart. (1776-1841.) 

Few, if any, of the great philosophers who have con- 
tributed to the progress that the theory of education has 
made within the last twenty 
years, have as wide a renown and 
as great a number of disciples as 
Herbart. He was born at Olden- 
burg in 1776, visited the Univer- 
sity at Jena,where he was greatly 
influenced by Fichte, and, in 
1797, accepted a position as pri- 
vate tutor in Switzerland. Being 
greatly interested in the study 
of pedagogics, he visited Pesta- 
lozzi at Burgdorf, and began to 
investigate and develop the Pes- 
talozzian ideas. 

He was afterward instructor 
HERBART. |^^ ^j^^ Univcrsity of Gottin- 

gen, and, in 1809 was called to Koenigsberg to occupy 
the chair formerly held by the celebrated philosopher 
Kant. He lectured on pedagogics and founded and 
conducted a pedagogic seminary. W'th this seminary 
he connected a school of practice where his pedagogic 
ideas were practically applied. 




44 GREAT TEACHERS 

He returned to Gottingen in 1833, where he was pro- 
fessor of philosophy till he died, August 14, 1841. 

Herbart published a treatise ^'On Pestalozzi's work : 
How Gertrude Teaches Her Children " and " Pesta- 
lozzi's Idea of an A B C of Sense-perception Scientifi- 
cally developed." His most noted pedagogical writings 
are '* General Pedagogics," a most remarkable contribu- 
tion to the science of education published in 1806, and 
"Outlines of Pedagogic Lectures." 

Herbart aimed to mark out a definite field for peda- 
gogics, which he founded on a strictly psychological 
basis, determining the end to be attained in ethics. 

He divides the business (office) of education into 
three interdependent branches : government or discipline, 
trainifig^ and instruction. In educational practice these 
three are intimately connected. 

The keynote of Herbart's pedagogy is " educating " — 
that is, mind and character-building instruction. 

In regard to the relation between education and in- 
struction he says that he has no idea of education with- 
out instruction, and, on the other hand, will not recog- 
nize any instruction that does not also educate. 

Educating instruction does not merely aim at knowl- 
edge and technical ability, but above all at the pej-fec- 
tion of the individual. 

In order to reach its aim it must develop in the pupil 
an interest in all that is good and beautiful, and thus 
direct and strengthen his moral-esthetic judgment. Its 
particular work is the production and cultivation of new 
ideas. To rouse the interest of the pupil requires atten- 
tio7i^ absorption of the mind in the object under consider- 
ation, reflection., or the collection of ideas, and method., 
the proper and well-directed self-activity of the pupil. 

The thought that forms the basis of Herbart's theory 
of education is most forcibly expressed in his own 
words : "Instruction will form the circle of thought 
and education the character. The last is nothing with- 
out the first ; herein is contained the sum of my peda- 
gogy." 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 45 

american lEbucatore. 

COLONIAL TIMES, 

The ideas of Comenlus reached America in the early 
years of the New England Colonies. His '' Janua" was 
known to the learned settlers. Mr. Monroe who has 
made a very careful research to trace the influence of 
Comenius on American Education has come across sev- 
eral copies that he finds to have been the property of 
Harvard students in the early days of the university. 
Cotton Mather's statement that the great educationist 
was called to the presidency of Harvard in 1839, has 
been questioned because no mention is made of the 
fact in the carefully kept records of the college. Still 
he may be right. Bacon's writings were studied at 
Harvard from the opening of the university. Locke's 
philosophy received particular attention in the first half 
of the century at Harvard as well as Yale. It would be 
an interesting study to trace the effects of the educational 
ideas of the great masters. They certainly exerted a 
far-reaching mfluence. The sons of old Harvard and 
Yale were the leading teachers in colonial times. But 
only a few chose teaching as a life vocation, and those 
who did held positions in the higher institutions of 
learning. 

Up to 1769, there was no book on pedagogics pub- 
lished in America. Here and there appeared articles 
on education, but all very general in character, such as 
might be written by men who knew little or nothing 
about the nature of children and the historic achieve- 
ments of pedagogics. Attempts were also made to de- 
vise methods for the teaching of one or the other 
branch of instruction. The best known work of that 
time is probably Franklin's ''Sketch of an English 
School," 1749, addressed to the Philadelphia Academy. 
This contained a plan for the organization of the school, 
a course of study, and hints regarding the method of 
teaching. The method was mere mechanical rote-work, 
the needs and constitution of the child-mind were not 
at all considered. There is, however, one significant 



46 GREAT TEACHERS 

thought. Dr. Franklin aimed at thorough acquaintance 
with the English language and literature and left out 
the ancient languages, which he considered of but very 
little value for American boys. 

First American Book on Pedagogics. 

Christopher Dock, a German Mennonite, was the 
author of the first complete pedagogic work published 
in this country. He taught in Pennsylvania for fifty 
years and was widely known as a skilful schoolmaster. 
His success in teaching prompted Christopher Sower, 
the Germantown publisher, to ask him for a description 
of his method of teaching and management of the 
school. The MS. was completed in 1750, but the 
modest writer would not at first give his consent to 
have it published before his death, and it did not appear 
in print until 1769. The title of the book was Schul- 
Ordnung (plan of teaching). A copy of the first edition 
may be found in the Library of the Historical Society 
of Pennsylvania. Samuel W. Pennypacker, whose ^' His- 
torical Sketches" contain a biography of Dock, has re- 
cently translated part of the work into English. 

A Teacher of The Last Century. 

J. P. Wickersham, who has made a very comprehen- 
sive study of the educational growth of Pennsylvania, 
gives an account of Antoine Benezet, a Frenchman, who 
taught for forty years, in and near Philadelphia. " Bene- 
zet," he writes, "introduced a great reform in the dis- 
cipline of the times. He discarded force and governed 
his school by kindness, appealing to the sense of man- 
liness, honor, and right in his pupils and not that of fear." 
He seems to have been a devoted student of pedagogic 
writings. He was familiar with the theories of Rabelais, 
Montaigne, and Comenius, discussed Basedow's ideas 
with the German teachers in Philadelphia, and in his 
last years was greatly interested in Rousseau's " Emile." 
A letter which he wrote one year before his death 
shows that he was imbued with the spirit of the great 
reformers, though very cautious in adopting their plans. 
Moral-religious culture was his aim. He commended 
for the school curriculum, besides the ordinary branches, 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 47 

mensuration, the use of the scale and compass, book- 
keeping, physics, geography, elements of astronomy, 
history, physiology and hygiene, etc., and he writes, 
"The use of the microscope might also be profitably 
added, in discovering the minuter parts of the creation, 
etc. Benezet died 1784. 

German Teachers. 

Several progressive teachers were to be found 
among those who came from Germany in the latter half 
of the i8th century. The agitations of Basedow were 
then stirring up their mother-country, and they brought 
the new ideas with them to America. Intellectual 'gym- 
nastics ' was their favorite subject of discussion, how to 
get the child to think correctly and to bring him on the 
right track when he had gone astray in thought. Their 
pedagogic text-book was " Thoughts, Propositions, and 
Wishes Concerning the Improvement of Public Educa- 
tion," by F. G. Resewitz, a follower of Basedow. This 
comprised five large volumes and was next to Basedow's 
works, the most exhaustive pedagogic treatise extant. 

The Era of Revolution. 

The revolutions that beginning in America spread 
over three continents rang in a new era, an era, as Web- 
ster describes it, ** distinguished by free, representative 
governments ; by entire religious liberty ; by improved 
systems of international intercourse ; by a newly 
awakened and unquenchable spirit of free inquiry, and 
by a fusion of knowledge, such as had been, before, alto- 
gether unknown and unheard of." To preserve and 
perpetuate the blessings gained in the battles of free- 
dom, all eyes turned to education. A new day was to 
dawn for the common school. 



. PESTALOZZIAN ERA. 

French Influence and Jefferson. 

In the Southern states began a great educational 
movement after the Revolution. The ideas of the French 
encyclopedists and Rousseau were the dominant forces. 



48 GREAT TEACHERS 

Thomas Jefferson joined it, and it is owing mainly to 
his zeal and energetic reform work that it gave a power- 
ful impulse to the regeneration of education. His 
primary object was the establishment of a state univer- 
sity on the principles promulgated by the French think- 
ers. But he was no less interested in common school 
education. In 1779, he introduced into the General As- 
sembly a bill providing for the foundation of schools, 
for X.\\Q free framing of all free childrefi^ male and female, 
for three years in reading, writing, and arithmetic* 
The admission of girls to the public schools was a step 
in advance of all that had been attempted in American 
education up to that time. Moreover, Jefferson gave an 
important place to reading in the school curriculum ; it 
was to be the avenue to intelligence. The books to be 
read should contain mainly historical material. His 
broad plan comprised primary, secondary, and higher 
education. " Were it necessary," he wrote to Cabell in 
1823, " to give up either the primaries or the university, 
I would rather abandon the last, because it is safer to 
have a whole people respectably enlightened than a few 
in a high state of science, and the many in ignorance. 
The last is the most dangerous state in which a nation 
can be. The nations and governments of Europe are 
so many proofs of it." In the history of American edu- 
cation the work of no man has had a more powerful and 
far-reaching influence on the thought of his time than 
that of Thomas Jefferson. The great educational re- 
vival after the war of 181 2 sprang from this source. 

First News of Pestalozzi. 

Maclure and Neef. 

The news of Pestalozzi's educational work had 
reached the United States already in the first de- 
cade of the present century. A wealthy Pennsylvanian 
William Maclure, who was renowned in his time as a 
scientist, had taken a trip to Switzerland to collect in- 
teresting geological specimens. While there he heard 
the people talk much of Pestalozzi's educational work 

* Jefferson and the University of Virginia. By Herbert P. Adams. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 49 

and visited the school at Yverdon, in 1805. The school 
work he there observed made him an enthusiastic ad- 
mirer of the master. He desired to take Pestalozzi 
with him to America to introduce his principles of 
teaching there. He was referred Joseph Neef, who had 
been Pestalozzi's co-adjutor in the school at Berne. 
Neff was then teaching in Paris. Maclure immediately 
wrote to him and later he went himself to urge him to 
accept his invitation to follow him to Philadelphia. "I 
have seen Pestalozzi," he said to Neef, "I know his sys- 
tem ; my country wants it, and will receive it with 
enthusiasm. I engage to pay your passage and secure 
your livelihood. Go and be your master's apostle in 
the new world." 

Neef published two books on education, one in 1808, 
the first account of Pestalozzi's plan that appeared in our 
country, the other, containing his " Methods of Teach- 
ing, " five years later. He conducted a school on 
Pestalozzian principles in Philadelphia for about twenty 
years. In 1826 he founded the ''Community School" at 
New Harmony, in Southern Indiana. Here, according 
to Prof. Boone, were prepared the first teachers in a 
formal way, perhaps in all the West. 

Maclure published a volume entitled " Opinions on 
Various Subjects" which contains an interesting chap- 
ter on ''The Advanta_sres of the Pestalozzian System of 
Education, " He also wrote articles for the National 
Intelligencer and interested a large number of intelligent 
Americans in Pestalozzi's work and principles of educa- 
tion. 

Joseph Carrington Cabell. 

Another man to whom our country owes much for the 
introduction of the Pestalozzian ideas, is Joseph Car- 
rington Cabell, a Virginian. He was a graduate of Wil- 
liam and Mary College ; and Dr. Herbert P. Adams* 
writes " one of the finest types of liberal and professional 
culture ever graduated from that royal old college, 
which trained up many statesmen for Virginia." He 
had studied in Paris, Montpellier, and various Italian 

*In TJiomas Jefferson and the University of Virginia^ which has been 
freely consulted in the preparation of this paragraph. 



50 GREAT TEACHERS 

universities. Educational methods appear to have been 
Cabell's as well as Jefferson's principal object of inquiry. 
He was particularly interested in Swiss education. He 
visited Pestalozzi at Yverdon and studied his school and 
the principles on which it was built. He afterwards en- 
deavored to introduce the Pestalozzian system in Vir- 
ginia. In 1806 he returned from his tour of educational 
observation and went to Washington with letters of in- 
troduction to Jefferson, then president of the United 
States. His influence in educational matters, particu- 
larly in founding the University of Virginia, was ** second 
only to that of Jefferson." How much Cabell ac- 
complished for the dissemination of Pestalozzianism we 
cannot say with definiteness. But certain it is that by 
championing Jefferson's grand scheme of popular edu- 
cation he was imbued with the spirit of the teacher of 
Yverdon and brought the new ideas home to the men 
who were searching for a system and building material 
of common school education. 

We do not intend to go into details. What has been 
said proves conclusively that the news of the Pestaloz- 
zian system of universal education did not come by way 
of England, as has often been asserted. But while in 
our country there was then hardly an opportunity for a 
general reform of primary education, owing to lack of 
organization, England could begin an improvement of 
the schools after the Yverdon model.* 

Educational Awakening. 

Meanwhile a reform had been begun in the organiz- 
ation of the higher institutions of learning, owing 
mainly to Jefferson's plan in the founding of the Uni- 
versity of Virginia. Then followed the great educational 
revival that spread over the whole country and brought 
new life into the systems of public instruction. Asso- 



* 111 England the ground had been well prepared by the writings and labors 
of the Edgeworths. Their work on " Practical Education " which appeared in 
1798, opened the door to school reform. Then came the Mayos. Charles Mayo, 
in 1826, called the attention of English educators to Pestalozzi's work and prin- 
ciples. He and his sister then opened a school to show the practical application 
of the plan. They also wrote books on the Pestalozzian method that had a wide 
circulation and helped to disseminate Pestalozzianism wherever the English 
language was spoken. The Home and Colonial Infant Society, founded in 1836, 
followed, and adopted the principles of the great Swiss reformer as the 
basis of its educational work. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 51 

ciations were formed to promote the diffusion of peda- 
gogic principles. The Western Literary Institute and 
College of Professional Teachers, begun in Cincinnati, 
became a powerful agency in education. Lyman 
Beecher and C. E. Stowe w^ere among its enthusiastic 
members. Mrs. Sigourney and Mrs. Willard wrote 
papers on female education for it. State educational 
associations came into existence. Teachers' institutes, 
were organized. Normal schools were opened and became 
state institutions, owing mainly to the exertions of two 
men— James G. Carter, '' the father of normal schools," 
to whose efforts was due the passage of the Normal 
School Act in Massachusetts (1838), and Edmund 
Dwight, who gave a large sum of money to found the 
first establishment of this kind. The Massachusetts 
state normal was opened in 1839, at Lexington. 

District scnool libraries were founded. A system of 
school supervision was inaugurated. Educational jour- 
nals came into existence. The principle of free edu- 
cation FOR ALL was established forever, America lead- 
ing the world in its adoption. 

Origin of Institutes. 

The work of promoting in formal way professional 
culture among those already in the service, began when 
Dr. Henry Barnard, then school-commissioner of 
Connecticut called his teachers together at Hartford, 
in 1839. This gathering and the subsequent one 
were at his own expense. The Barnard classes were 
attended by from twenty to thirty teachers, with a 
faculty of seven instructors. This was the origin of 
modern institutes. The first institute, i-^ r^/A'^, accord- 
ing to Prof. Boone, was held in Tompkins county, N. Y., 
by Supt. J. S. Denman 1843. 

. Prof. Hall's Lectures. 

In 1823, Prof. S. R. Hall opened a private teachers' 
school, atConcord, N. H., for those preparing to teach. 
With this institution he connected a model and practice 
school. The talks on teaching and lessons delivered 
there were published, in 1829, under the title "Lectures 



52 . GREAT TEACHERS 

on Teaching." This admirable work became widely 
known and contributed greatly to the advancement of 
the pedagogical preparation of teachers. James Wads- 
worth, of Geneseo, N. Y., purchased a large number of 
copies, and distributed them among the teachers of New 
York, 1830. In New England also the '' Lectures " were 
placed in the hands of teachers by philanthropists. Prof. 
Hall was the author of many school-books, also a vol- 
ume of *' Lectures to Female Teachers." Prof. Boone 
calls him "the pioneer in the work which most distin- 
guishes recent from early schooling in the United 
States." 

Pedagogical Journals. 

Dr. Barnard is our authority for the statement that 
the Academician was the first journal devoted to the 
theory and practice of teaching. It was published by 
the Picketts, in New York, in 181 1. A volume of this 
rare work may be found in the library of Dr. Jerome 
Allen. Albert Pickett, one of the editors, was then one 
of the foremost educators. He conducted the re- 
nowned Manhattan Female Seminary. He was the leader 
in the movement that led to the organization of 
the Western Literary Institute and College of Profes- 
sional Teachers. 

The first pedagogical journal published in New Eng- 
land, was that published in Boston, 1826, Annals of 
Education. Its editors were William C. Woodbridge, 
William A. Alcott, and William Russell. Among the 
contributors were Prof. Emerson, Horace Mann, 
Francis Wayland, Joseph Story, and Bronson Alcott. 
Many foreign works on education were translated and 
discussed. 

Tho. Common School Journal oi Massachusetts (1837) 
was started by Horace Mann, that of Connecticut (1838) 
by Dr. Henry Barnard. The New York District School 
Journal, edited by Francis D wight, of Geneva, was in 
existence in 184 r. In that year the state legislature 
ordered a subscription for as many copies of this journal, 
as would be sufficient to supply each school district. 
Dr. Barnard's celebrated American Journal of Education 
was established in 1855. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 53 

James Wadsworth. 

Among the promoters of the common school cause 
James Wadsworth, of Geneseo, N. Y., deserves a prom- 
inent place. He was ever ready to assist educational 
enterprises. To him we owe it that Cousin's celebrated 
report on European education was translated and scat- 
tered broadcast through the Eastern states. That re- 
port transplanted the achievements of European peda- 
gogics into this country. Wadsworth gave liberal sup- 
port to the educationists of his state. J. Orville Taylor, 
who wrote an admirable work on the " District School " 
(1834), received an annual salary from him. He also paid 
a large sum of money to Bishop Potter and Prof. Emer- 
son to enable them to write a book on " The School and 
the Schoolmaster" (1842). "^That he purchased, in 1830, a 
large number of Prof. Hall's '^ Lectures on School-keep- 
ing" for the teachers of his state, has already been re- 
ferred to. A permanent monument to his memory is 
the District School Library, of which he is the founder. 

Joseph Lancaster. 

A great improvement in teaching was introduced 
by Joseph Lancaster, the English schoolmaster, who 
arrived in New York in 1818. He was warmly wel- 
comed by Gov. Clinton and other promoters of element- 
ary education ; visited the public schools of the city, 
gave a series of lectures explaining his system of teach- 
ing, and infused new life into educational activity. Lan- 
caster was born in 1778. In 1791, he opened a school for 
destitute children in England. Being without funds he 
adopted a plan of organization that would save him the 
expense of engaging salaried teachers. This plan was 
known as the monitorial system. The monitorial sys- 
tem was founded by Dr. Andrew Bell. He had observed 
in Madras that the children of the natives were taught 
by older pupils under the supervision ot the teacher. 
This led him to try the experiment by employing a boy 
to assist in the management of his school. It proved 
so great a success that he dismissed his adult assistants 
and got boys to take part in teaching. The system was 
introduced in England in 1797. There Lancaster be- 



54 



GREAT TEACHERS 



came acquainted with it, and started out to realize it in 
his schools. 

Lancaster's success attracted attention. '* Lancast- 
rian schools " were founded everywhere in England, 
America, Russia, Denmark, France, and many other 
countries. In Germany, the plan did not find much 
favor and was dismissed after a few experiments. In 
the United States, particularly New York and Pennsyl- 
vania, it was in operation in many institutions till the 
normal schools were established and a conception of the 
ofiice of the teacher had taken root. When Lancaster 
again visited New York, in 1838, his system of instruc- 
tion had been superseded by more modern ideas, and his 
efforts to restablish it were fruitless. He died in New 
York, 1838. 

Horace Mann. 

Horace Mann, "the Nestor of American education,'* 
was born May 4, 1796, at Franklin, Mass. The great 
aim of his noble life was to do something for the benefit 
of mankind. His public career began in 1827, when he 

was elected to the Massa- 
chusetts legislature. One of 
the most important legisla- 
tive measures that was due to 
his exertions was the estab- 
lishment of a State Lunatic 
Hospital at Worcester, the 
parent of those beneficent 
institutions in our country. 

Mann's work for the cause 
of popular education began 
in 1837, when he was ap- 
pointed secretary of the 
Massachusetts State Board of 
Education. On the day that 
he received his commission^ 
"• ^^^N- he wrote into his diary : " The 

path of usefulness is opened before me. My present 
purpose is to enter into it. Few undertakings, accord- 
ing to my appreciation of it, have been greater. I know 
of none which may be more fruitful in beneficent results. 
God grant me annihilation of selfishness, a mind of 




OF FOUR CENTURIES. 55 

wisdom, a heart of benevolence. . . . Let me strive 
to direct its current in such a manner, that if, when I 
have departed from life, I may still be permitted to 
witness its course, I may behold it broadening and deep- 
ening, an everlasting progression of virtue and happi- 
ness." With this high aim in view he entered upon his 
his work. He began to study books on education, par- 
ticularly the works of Combe. After he had worked 
out his plan he made a circuit through the state and 
called together conventions of teachers, school com- 
mittees, and others interested in the cause of education 
to recommend desirable improvements and, as he put it, 
" generally to apply a flesh-brush to the back of the 
public." As an orator for the cause he had espoused, 
Mann was without an equal. His one great subject was 
Universal Education in Public Schools Free to all.* 
He also began (1837) the publication of a semi-monthly 
journal, at his own expense, in which he presented his 
views on school management and the principles and 
methods of teaching. 

Mann's greatest works on the principles and practice 
of teaching, were his annual reports to the board of 
education. They are the most valuable contributions 
to American pedagogical literature ever written. The 
seventh report which contained his observations in the 
schools of Europe gave a new turn to American educa- 
tion. 

In 1848, Mann resigned his position as secretary and 
was elected to Congress. There he worked zealously 
for the establishment of a national bureau of education, 
an institution that had been under discussion for more 
than half a century. His object, however, was not 
accomplished. The bureau did not come into existence 
until 1866, when Dr. E. E. White, appointed by the 
National Educational Association, presented a memorial 
to Congress which James A. Garfield carried through 
the House by a powerful speech. In 1867 the bureau 
was established, and Dr. Henry Barnard was appointed 
the first U. S. Commissioner of Education. 

In 1852, Horace Mann was nominated as the candi- 

* To an address delivered by Mann before the New York State Convention 
of Superintendents, 1845, New York owes the final adoption of a system of 
free education. 



56 GREAT TEACHERS 

date of the "free soil " party for governor of his state. 
In the state convention which nominated him, one 
speaker said : " His fame is as wide as the universe. 
It was my fortune to hear a debate in London on the 
question, whether the representatives should be in- 
structed in favor of secular education. They voted 
that they would not do it. But a gentleman then read 
some statistics from one of the reports of Horace Mann. 
That vote reversed the vote of the common council of 
London. I never felt prouder of my country." Mann 
was defeated, but is said that he received more votes 
by far than any other candidate of his party. Some 
time later he was invited to the presidency of Antioch 
College, Ohio, an institution that was about to be opened 
under apparently very favorable auspices, and accepted. 
He continued his work at the college until his death, 
August 2, 1859. 

EDUCATIONAL IDEAS. 

Horace Mann was a humanitarian, a reformer in the 
educational field. He sought for a culture of all the 
faculties and susceptibilities of body and mind. He 
believed the child to have interests far higher than 
those of mere physical existence. "Better that the in- 
terests of the natural life should not be cared for than 
that the higher interests of the character should be 
neglected. He has claims to knowledge to keep him 
from error and its retinue of calamities, and to moral 
culture to be rescued from vice and crime." 

He aimed to influence the nation through the schools. 
" The child," he says, "is the ancestor of those who are to 
follow ; and hence must receive great care in order to 
transmit civilization and culture onward. The state 
must shoulder responsibilities for this. In order to 
fulfill its duty it maintains schools, and in obedience to 
the great principles of natural law and natural equity, 
is bound to make them accessible to all. From these 
considerations he deduced his main theorem : " Free 
Schools for the Universal Education of its Peo- 
ple." 

He believed that education should be built on an 
anthropological basis, following the natural develop- 
ment of man's physical and psychical powers. He made 



OF FOUR CENTURIES. 57 

a careful study of the best methods of instruction em- 
ployed in European schools and urged the American 
educators to adopt them. He was a firm believer in 
Pestalozzian discoveries. He was one of the first in 
this country to advocate a phonetic method of teaching 
reading,and did r.uch to drive the old alphabetic method 
with its attendant evils out of the school-room. He 
was also greatly interested in the promotion of manual 
arts and contributed to the introduction of drawing in 
the school-room. His Annual Reports and Covmion 
School Journal 2.rt mines of pedagogic wisdom. 

The Horace Mann Era. 

The " Horace Mann era " was the era of a general 
educational awakening. Much had been said and writ- 
ten before that on the improvement of education. In 
the higher institutions new life had begun in the days 
of Jefferson but the common school had been neglected. 
Through the efforts of Mann the friends of education 
were stirred up everywhere to action. What up to that 
time had been held in theory was now to be put in 
practice. A revolt began against the methods employed. 
Better school buildings were erected, the old slab 
benches thrown out and commodious desks brought 
into the school, and the interior as well as the exterior 
made more attractive. The discipline of the school be- 
came less harsh. The idea took root somewhat that men- 
tal development and not text-book study was to be aimed 
at. The new ideas needed men and women better pre- 
pared as teachers. Normal schools were founded to 
supply them. The first state institution was that at 
Lexington, Mass. New York followed by establishing 
a normal school at Albany. To David P. Page who was 
its first principal, the American public school owes a 
debt of gratitude. Not only did he give his pupils a 
thorough preparation for their future duties, but he in- 
spired them with a love of teaching, which to him 
meant the highest and noblest profession, a co-opera- 
tion with God in the education of the American people. 

Frcebelian Workers in America. 

As early as 1850 Frcebel's work became known in this 



58 GREAT TEACHERS 

country. Dr. Barnard called attention to it. Then 
came Miss Elizabeth Peabody, and it is mainly due to 
her untiring missionary efforts that Froebel's ideas were 
disseminated and the kindergarten firmly established on 
American soil. Froebel was a disciple of Pestalozzi. 
The discussion of his ideas gave a deeper meaning to 
Pestalozzianism, and thus the elementary school derived 
a substantial gam. 

Pedagogic Writings. 

The organization of institutes and schools for the 
special training of teachers gave evidence that the work 
of the educator had become recognized as an art regu- 
lated by distinct and definite laws. The teachers began 
to look around for information regarding their w^ork. 
The reports of Cousin, Bache, Stowe, Mann, Barnard, 
and others on the schools of Europe were widely read 
and have been most influential aids in the diffusion of 
knowledge of improved methods of teaching. Of the 
more systematic treatises devoted to the theory and 
practice of teaching, the following deserve particular 
notice, because they have permanent value* : 

The Teacher. By Jacob Abbot. 

The District School. By J. Orville Taylor. 1834. 

Hints on a System of Popular Education and How 
Shall I Govern my School. By C. E. Wines. 1838. 

The SchooL and The Schoolmaster. By Alonzo 
Potter and George B. Emerson. 1842. 

THEORy AND Practice of Teaching. By David P. 
Page. 1847. 

Of the latter work fourteen editions were issued in less 
than five years after its publication. It is as valuable 
to-day as fifty years ago and is one of the best peda- 
gogical works ever published in this country. James 
Johonnot was a pupil of David P. Page and has elabor- 
ated his master's ideas philosophically and practically in 
his Principles and Practice of Teaching. There is 
another book belonging to this period that discusses 
the foundation principles in a wonderfully clear and 

"In the list we mention only books published previous to 1850, beginning 
with 1830. 



OF FOUR CENTURIES, 59 

simple manner; we mean Bishop Huntington's Uncon- 
scious Tuition. 

The translations and republication of foreign works, 
many of them with valuable annotations, have brought 
the ideas of European masters to our shores. Dr. Harris 
has rendered a great service to the teachers by making 
Rosenkranz's Philosophy of Education available. Of 
other works, we mention those of Spencer, Payne, Fitch, 
Currie, Quick, Browning, Sully, Thring, Tate, Radistock, 
Preyer, Laurie, andRichter (Jean Paul). Through many 
historical writings and biographies the teachers have 
become acquainted with the ideas of the great masters, 
Comenius, Locke, Rousseau, Basedow, Pestalozzi, Froe- 
bel, etc. A book that has exerted a powerful influence 
on the primary schools of to-day is Talks on Teaching, 
by Col. F. W. Parker. At the present time the teachers 
of the country are attempting to acquaint themselves 
with the ideas of Herbart, the founder of scientific ped- 
agogics. A translation of Lange's Apperception has 
been published, to provide material for the study of the 
most interesting phase of the Herbartian system. Roop- 
er's A Pot of Green Feathers : A Study in Apper- 
ception treats the same subject and has become very 
popular. It will not be long before the ideas of the 
great Herbartians, Ziller, Stoy, Rein, Sallwurck, etc., 
will be as familiar to the progressive American teachers 
as they are to those in Germany. 



The Best Educational Periodicals. 



The School Journal 

is published weekly at $2.50 a year and is in its 23rd year. 
It is the oldest, best known and widest circulated educational 
weekly in the U. S. The Journal is filled with ideas that will 
surely advance the teachers' conception of education. The best 
brain work on the work of professional teaching is found in it 
— not theoretical essays, nor pieces scissored out of other 
journals — The School Journal has its own special writers— 
the ablest in the world. 

The Primary School Journal 

is published monthly from September to June at |i.oo a year. 
It is the ideal paper for primary teachers, being devoted almost 
exclusively to original primary methods and devices. Several 
entirely new features this year of great value. 

The Teachers' Institute 

is published monthly, at $1.00 a year. It is edited in the same 
spirit and from the same standpoint as The Journal, and has 
ever since it was started in 1878 been the most popular educa- 
tional monthly published, circulating in ever}/ state. Every line 
is to the point. It is finely printed and crowded with illustra- 
tions made specially for it. Every study taught by the teacher 
is covered in each issue. 

EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATIONS. 

This is not a paper, but a series of small monthly volumes 
that bear on Professional Teaching. It is useful for those who 
want to study the foundations of education ; for Normal Schools, 
Training Classes, Teachers' Institutes and individual teachers. 
If you desire to teach professionally you will want it. Hand- 
some paper covers, 64pp. each month. The History, Science, 
Methods, and Civics of education are discussed each month, 
and it also contains all of the N. Y, State Examination Ques- 
tions and Answers. 

OUR TIMES 

gives a resume of the important news of the month—not the 
murders, the scandals, etc., but the news that bears upon the 
progress of the world and specially written for the school- room. 
It is the brightest and best edited paper of current events pub- 
lished, and so cheap that it can be afforded by every pupil. 
Club rates, 25 cents. 

*4f* Select the paper suited to your needs and send for a free sample. 
Samples of all the papers 25 cents, 

E. L. KELLOQQ & CO., New York and Chicago. 



Best Books for Teachers, 

CJOASSIFIJSD LIST VNDEM SUBJECTS. 

To aid teachers to procure the books best suited to their purpose, WG 
give below a list of our publications classified under subjects. The division 
is sometimes a difficult one to make, so that we have in many cases placed 
the same book under several titles; for instance, Currie's Early Education 
appears under Principles and Practice op Education, and also 
Primary Educa^tion. Recent books are starred, thus * 

HISTORY OF EDUCATION, GREAT EDU- ^ ^ ., ^ 9"^ By 

PATn-RQ VTP Retail. Price to Mail 

LAiUKS, Hilii. Teachers Extra 

♦Allen's Historic Outlines of Education, - - paper .15 pd. 

Autobiography of Froebel, _ . - - cl. .50 .40 ,05 

*Brownini?'s Aspects of Education Best edition. cloth .Ji5 .20 .03 

" Educational Theories. Best edition. cl. .50 .40 .05 

♦Kellogg's Life of Pestalozzi, _ - _ _ paper .15 pd. 

♦Lang's Comenius, ______ paper .15 pd. 

* " Basedow, ------- paper .15 pd. 

* " Rousseau and his "Emile" - - - paper .15 pd. 

* " Horace Mann, ------ paper .15 pd. 

* " Great Teachers of Four Centuries, - cl. .25 .30 .03 
*Phelps' Life of David P. Page, - - - - paper .15 pd. 
Quick's Educational Reformers, Best edition. - cl. 1.00 .80 .08 
♦Reinhart's History of Education, - - - cl. .25 .«0 .03 

PSYCHOLOGY AND EDUCATION 

Allen's Mind Studies for Young Teachers, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Allen's Temperament in Education, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Perez's First Three Years of Cbildhood. Best edition, cl. 1.50 1.30 .10 

Rooper's Apperception, Best edition. - - cl. .25 .20 .03 

Welch's Teachers' Psychology, - - - - cl. 1.25 1.00 .10 

Talks on Psychoiogy, - - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 
PRINCIPLES OF EDUCATION 

Carter's Artificial Stupidity in School, - - paper .15 pd. 

Huntington's Unconscious Tuition, - - - paper .15 pd. 

Payne's Lectures on Science and Art of Education, cl. 1.00 .80 .08 

♦Reinhart's Principles of Education, - - - cl. .25 .20 .03 

♦Spencer's Education. Best edition. - - - el. 1.00 .80 ,10 

♦Hall (G. S.) Contents of Childi-en's Minds, - cl. .25 .20 3 

Tate's Philosophy of Education. Best edition. - cl. 1.50 1.30 .10 

♦Teachers' Manual Series. 22 nos. ready, each, paper .15 pd. 

PRINCIPLES AND PRACTICE OF EDUCATION 

Currie's Early Education, ----- cl. 1.25 1.00 ,08 

Fitch's Art of Questioning, ----- paper .15 pd 

" Art of Securing Attention - - _ paper .15 pd. 

" Lectures on Teaching, - - .- _ cl. 1.25 1.00 pd. 

Hughes' Mistakes in Teaching. Best edition. - cl. .50 .40 .05 

" Securing and Retaining Attention, Best ed. cl. .50 .40 ,05 

♦Parker's Talks on Pedagogy. Beady Nov. '93. cl. 1.50 1.30 .13 

Talks on Teaching, _ . - - cl. 1.25 1.00 .09 

" Practical Teacher, ----- cl. 1.50 1.30 .U 

Quick's How to Train the Memory, - - - paper .15 pd. 

♦Reinhart's Principles of Education, - - cl. .15 pd. 

* " Civics m Education, - - - - cl. .25 .30 .03 
Southwick's Quiz Manual of Teaching, - - cl. .75 .60 .05 
Yonge's Practical Work in School, - - - paper .15 pd, 

METHODS AND SCHOOL MANAGEMENT. 

♦Augsburg's Easy Di-awings for Geog. Class, - paper .50 .40 .05 

Easy Things to Draw, - - - paper .30 .34 .03 

Calkins' Ear and Voice Training, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Dewey's How to Teach Manners, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Gladstone's Object Teaching, - - - - paper .15 pd. 

Hughes' How to Keep Order, - - - - paper .15 pd. 

Johnson's Education by Doing, - - _ cl. .50 .40 .05 

♦Kellogg's How to Write Compositions - - paper 15 pd. 

" Geography by Map Drawing. - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

" School Management. - - - - cl. .75 .60 .05 



McMurry's How to Conduct the Recitation, - paper .15 pd. 

Patridg'e's Quincy Methods, Illustrated. - - cl. 1.75 1.^0 ,13 

Seeley's Grube Method Teaching Aril hmetic, cl. 1.00 .CO .07 

Grube Idea in Teaching Arithmetic - cl. .30 .^4 .03 

Sidgwick's Stimulus in School, - - - paper .15 pd. 

Shaw and Donneil's School Devices, - - cl. 1.25 l.©0 .10 
Smith's Rapid Practice Cards, - - - 32 sets, each .50 

WoodhuU's Easy Experiments in Science, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

" Home Made Apparatus, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

PRIMARY AND KINDERGARTEN 

Calkins' Ear and Voice Training, - _ - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Currie's Early Education, ----- cl. 1.25 1.00 .08 

Gladstone's Object Teaching, - - _ _ paper .15 pd. 

Autobiography of Froebel, _ - . _ cl. .50 .40 .05 

Hoffman's Kmdergarten Gifts, _ - - - paper .15 pd. 

Johnson';S Education by Doing, - - - _ cl. .50 .40 .05 

Parker's Talks on Teaching, - - _ _ cl. 1.25 l.OO ,09 

Patridge's Qumcy Methods, - - _ _ cl. 1.75 1.40 .13 

Seeley's Grube Method of Teaching Arithmetic, d. 1.00 .80 .07 

" Grube Idea in Primary Arithmetic, - cl. .30 .34 .03 

MANUAL TRAINING 

Butler's Argument for Manual Training, - - paper .15 pd. 

Love's Industrial Education, - - _ - cl. 1.50 1.30 .13 

♦Upham's Fifty Lessons in Woodworking, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

QUESTION BOOKS FOR TEACHERS 

Analytical Question Series. Geography, - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

L". S. History, - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Grammar, - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

N. Y. State Examination Questions, - - - cl. 1.00 .80 .08 

Shaw's >Tational Question Book, - - - 1.75 pa. 

Southwick's Handy Helps, ----- cl. 1.00 .80 .08 

Southwick's Quiz Manual of Teaching. Best edition, cl. .75 .60 .05 

PHYSICAL EDUCATION and SCHOOL HYGIENE 

Groff's School Hygiene, _ _ _ - _ paper .15 pd. 
MISCELLANEOUS 

♦Blaikie On Self Culture, ----- cl. .25 .30 .03 

Fitch's Improvement in Education, - - • paper .15 pd. 

Gardner's Town and Country School Buildings, cl. 2.50 3.00 .12 

Lubbock's Best 100 Books, ----- paper .«0 pd. 

Pooler's N. Y. School Law, ----- cl. .30 .34 .03 

*Walsh's Great Rulers of the World, - - - cl. .50 .40 .05 

Wilheim's Student's Calendar, - . - _ paper .30 .34 .03 

SINGING AND DIALOGUE BOOKS 

Reception Day Series, 6 Nos. (Set iS1.40 postpaid. > Each. .30 .34 .03 

Song Treasures. --__--_ paper .15 pd. 

♦Best Primary Songs, new ------- .15 pd. 

SCHOOL APPARATUS 

Smith's Rapid Practice Arithmetic Cards, (32 sets). Each, .50 pd. 
" Standard " Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) Price on application. 

" Man Wonderful " Manikin, _ - - - 5.00 pd. 
Standard Blackboard Stencils, 500 different nos., 

from 5 to 50 cents each. Send for special catalogue. 

" Unique " Pencil Sharpener, - - - - 1.50 .10 
Standard Physician's Manikin. (Sold by subscription.) 

j^° 100 page classified, illustrated, descriptive Catalogue of the above 
and many other Method Books, Teachers' Helps, sent free. 100 pageCat- 
lourue of books tor teachers, of all publishers, light school apparatus, etc. 
also free. Each of these contain our special teachers' prices. 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., New York & Chicago. 



SEND ALL ORDERS TO 

E. L. KELLOGG & CO., NEW YORK & CHICAGO. 29 






Reception T)qy. 6 ih[os, 

A collection of fresh and original dialogues, recitations, 
declamations, and short pieces for practical use in Pubhc 
and Private Schools. Bound in handsome, new paper 
cover, 160 pages each, printed on laid paper. Price 30 
cents each ; to teachers, 24 cents ; by mail, 3 cents extra. 

The exercises in these books bear upon education ; have a 
relation to the school-room. 

1. The dialogues, recitations, 
^Jll and declamations, gathered ii. 

this volume being fresh, short, 
-^-,,, easy to be comprehended and 
;.J^^j are well fitted for the average 
""^ ' scholars of om* schools. 

2. They have mainly been 
used by teachers for actual 
school exercises. 

3. They cover a different 
gTound from the speeches of 
Demosthenes and Cicero — 
which are unfitted for boys of 
twelve to sixteen years of age. 

4. They have some practical 
interest for those who use 
them. 

5. There is not a vicious 
sentence uttered. In some 
dialogue books j)rofanity is 
found, or disobedience to 
parents encouraged, or lying 




NEW COVER. 

laughed at. Let teachers look out for this. 

6. There is something for the youngest pupils. 

7. *' Memorial Day Exercises " for Bryant, Garfield, Lincoln, 
etc. , will be found. 

8. Several Tree Planting exercises are included. 

9. The exercises have relation to the school-room and bear 
upon education. 

10. An important point is the freshness of these pieces. 
Most of them were written expressly for this collection, and 
can be found nowhere else. 

Eostou Journal of Education.— " Is of practical value." 
Detroit Free Press.—" Suitable for public and private schools.'* 
Western Ed. Journal.—" A s erie s of very good selections." 



34 



SEND ALL ORDERS TO 

E. L. KELLOOO & CO., NEW TORK & CHICAGO. 



WHAT EACH NUMBER CONTAINS. 



No. 1 

Is a specially fine number. One dia- 
logue in it, called " Work Conquers," 
for 11 girls and 6 boys, has been given 
hundreds of times, and is alone worth 
the price of the book. Then there 
are 21 other dialogues. 
29 Recitations. 
14 Declamations. 
17 Pieces for the Primary Class. 

No. 2 Contains 

S9 Recitations. 
12 Declamations. 

17 Dialogues. 

24 Pieces for the Primaiy Class. 
And for Class Exercise as follows: 
The Bird's Party. 
Indian Names. 
Valedictory. 
Washington's Birthday. 
Garfield Memorial Day. 
Grant " " 

Whittier " " 

Sigourney " " 

No. 3 Contains 

Fewer of the longer pieces and more 
of the shorter, as follows : 

18 Declamations. 

21 Recitations. 

22 Dialogues. 

24 Pieces for the Primary Class. 
A Christmas Ex:ercise, 
Opening Piece, and 
An Historical Celebration. 



No. 4 Contains 

Campbell Memorial Day. 
Longfellow " " 

Michael Angelo " " 
Shakespeare " " 

Washington " " 

Christmas Exercise. 
Arbor Day " 

New Planting " 
Thanksgiving '* 
Value of Knowledge Exercise. 
Also 8 other Dialogues. 
21 Recitations. 

23 Declamations. 

No. 5 Contains 

Browning Memorial Day. 
Autumn Exercise. 
Bryant Memorial Day. 
New Planting Exercise. 
Christmas Exercise. 
A Concert Exercise. 

24 Other Dialogues. 
16 Declamations, and 
36 Recitations. 

No. 6 Contains 
Spring; a flower exercise for very 

young pupils. 
Emerson Memorial Day. 
New Year's Day Exercise. 
Holmes' Memorial Day. 
Fourth of July Exercise. 
Shakespeare Memorial Day. 
Washington's Birthday Exercise. 
Also 6 other Dialogues. 
6 Declamations. 
41 Recitations. 

15 Recitations for the Primary Class. 
And 4 Songs. 



Our Reception Day Series is not sold largely by booksellers, 
who, if they do not keep it, try to have you huy something else 
similar, but not so good. Therefore send direct to the publishers, 
by mail, the price as above, in stamps or postal notes, and your 
order will be filled at once. Discount for quantities. 



SPECIAL OFFER. 

If ordered at one time, we will send postpaid the entire 
6 Nos. for $1.40. Note the reduction. 



